Of Love and Death
by The Golden Gael
Summary: When Robin and Starfire finally express their feelings for each other, Slade unleashes hell on earth. People tell me I'm a good writer, so trust me, this one isn't the typical Robin Starfire happy romance. This one, is a ride
1. Default Chapter

1.

The alarm went off, waking everyone from the midday stupor they'd happily settled into. It had been a while since the thing had sounded, and it caught everyone by surprise. Beast Boy jumped about five feet or so, landing on his rear end in the centre of the room.

"We seriously need to turn that thing down..." he said as he stood, rubbing the affected area of his back side. The screen, looming huge in front of the group, turned on and showed a day time bank robbery, being pulled off by quite a familiar face.

"That is so not the Great Mumbo..." Raven said, half sighed at the sight. He was dressed as a magician, top hat, tuxedo, throwing coloured cloths and red rubber balls everywhere. Plus, he was blue, that kind of sealed it.

"It's Mumbo alright...thought we put him away..." Cyborg said.

"Yeah, but they always seem to come back. We need a new jail." Robin muttered, obviously distracted by the scene being played out on the screen. "Come on, let's not let him get away." Robin swept out of the room, his cape fluttering and trailing behind him. Starfire, as soon as Robin was around the corner, quickly stood and flew away, catching him up and walking close to him. Neither said anything, but he was glad she was close. He was always happy when she was close to him. He wondered for a moment if she knew that? Maybe one day he'd tell her.

One day, but not today.

The others followed, and they were all soon inside Cyborg's car. Cyborg was driving, and Beast Boy nabbed the shotgun seat before anyone else had a chance, leaving Raven in the middle seat, and Robin and Starfire sitting beside each other. Again, much to Robin's appeal. Robin didn't know this, but Starfire liked it too, being near Robin that is. Out of all the humans she'd met in her short time on earth, he was by far the nicest, most caring one. Plus, she really liked the way he kept his hair, so spiky. No one did that back home.

"Are you worried about what we may face when we get to the house of money?" Starfire asked Robin, in that high lilting voice of hers.

"Well, last time we met the Great Mumbo, I got turned into a monkey, so yeah, I'm a little nervous. But don't worry, we can take him." Robin offered her a full smile, which was something else she found she liked about him. She even forgot about the mask covering half of his face when he smiled. It was just that great.

She could see the bank, and all the commotion associated with it looming up ahead, and regrettably put Robin out of her mind.

She didn't know this, but he did the same about her, and just as regrettably.

Suddenly, a very odd thing happened, the car which they'd been speeding along in came to a sudden halt, and at the same time, it turned into an odd sort of horse drawn carriage. A very ornate, Regally decked out horse drawn carriage, minus the horses.

"Ok," Raven said, in sarcastic exaggeration. There was a doily hanging from the roof straying into her face, which she brushed aside like a loose lock of hair.

Then, there was a creaking, like someone was trying to break a two by four in half by bending it over on itself.

"The ball's over Titans, better get home before midnight!" Mumbo was standing on the roof of the bank, brandishing a black wand with white, ivory tips.

"Umm, perhaps we should exit the...car now." Starfire said, reaching for the door that wasn't there anymore. They all managed to escape carriage just as it imploded on itself, leaving behind a large, orange, perfect pumpkin.

"My car!" Cyborg yelled. He was holding the sides of his head, as if he were trying to keep his brains from exploding.

"Titans, get that wand!"

They all raced towards Mumbo, who for one reason or another, refused to move.

"You pumpkin my car, you get the laser!" Cyborg yelled, and fired a stream of blue towards Mumbo. A goodly sized portion of the banks roof disappeared in a cloud, but when the cloud lifted, Mumbo was gone.

"Did I get him?"

"Guess again Tin foil boy!" He appeared over Cyborg's left shoulder, and quickly ensnared him in a trap. Around him appeared a box, with three doors stacked horizontally. Mumbo threw the doors open, and where Cyborg's head was, his feet now laid. His head was in the middle, and his torso was on the bottom. Mumbo quickly disappeared again.

"Dirty...blue skinned...hat wearing...wand waving two bit clown!" The head yelled, from under the feet. Raven slammed the doors closed, and with a wave of black energy, decimated the box.

"Pull yourself together," she said, in a somewhat monotone voice. She quickly flew off after Mumbo. Cyborg, after finding that all his parts were back where they belonged, followed her.

Mumbo had disappeared again, the group looked around, hoping that the next move would present itself.

"Magicians..." Raven muttered to herself. Suddenly Mumbo reappeared in the middle of the street behind them.

"Catch me if you can, my little Titanimals!" He took off his hat and reached inside. What he pulled out, was another Mumbo, identical to him in every way. This second one did the same, creating a third, and the third reached into his hat as well, creating a fourth Mumbo. All of them went in different directions, down different streets.

"Titans, split up!" Robin yelled. Robin went after one, Raven, another, Beast Boy another, And Cyborg went after the last one. Starfire, who was still standing still, decided to go after the same one as Robin was chasing. To her, it was not a difficult decision.

She wasn't really thinking at all, in fact.

As Robin raced down the street, she flew to catch up to him, and then picked him up. She could carry him and fly faster than he could run, and they'd done the manouevre enough times that Robin wasn't especially surprised when he was no longer touching the ground.

"Star, I think he's on the roofs," Robin said, which was another really good reason to be airborne. She veered upward, slowly putting distance between them and the ground. Sure enough, Mumbo was on their right, running over the roof of the buildings and bounding over the gaps between them.

"Star, throw me!" Robin yelled. Starfire didn't hesitate. With a strength that came from another world, she tossed Robin straight towards the fleeing Mumbo. In mid flight, Robin shifted his body into a manageable pose, and removed the staff from his utility belt.

He landed on Mumbo and the two went tumbling across the roof he'd just jumped onto. Robin managed to get a good knock in with his staff and when Mumbo stood, he was nursing a nice big lump on the right side of his head.

"You'll pay for that, Bird Boy!" He smiled, and pulled a bouquet of flowers from inside his coat.

"That's it?" Robin said, relaxing noticeably. Mumbo tossed the flowers at Robins feet, and a swarm of bees erupted from their depths.

"Waaaaah!" Robin broke off in a mindless run, seeing only enough to not run off the edge of the building, but caring about little else. The bees that followed him were dense enough to form a black cloud, which homed in on him like a heat seeking rocket.

Meanwhile Starfire had snuck behind Mumbo, and let loose with a few bolts of green energy from her hands.

Mumbo turned in time to see the attack, and pulled his hat down, to cover the whole of his body. He'd grasped it by its brim, and when he pulled it stretched like elastic, protecting him from Starfire's balls of light.

"Nice try," he said. "Now what trick do I have for my lovely assistant today?" He waved his wand, and in a puff of smoke, Starfire found herself hung upside down, in a glass case full of water. Her feet were chained and locked over her head.

"Houdini's water torture chamber! My favourite!" She pounded against the glass, but it wasn't giving.

"Starfire!" Robin yelled in panic. He stopped running, and quickly put his staff into a spin in front of him. As the bees came at him, all of them were felled as the staff spun, almost too fast to be seen. When they were all at a pile at his feet, he made a run for where Starfire was. She didn't look good, her movements were slowing and her eyes were only half open.

"Too late for her, you should worry about you!" Mumbo waved his wand around his head and pointed it straight at Robin, with a flash of light, a giant metal boxing glove catapulted out of it, heading straight for Robin.

He managed to fire off his staff before being struck.

It felt, for lack of a better term, like a car hitting him. He was thrown backwards violently, and when he stopped sliding along the ground, he didn't get up. His throw was good, however, and before Mumbo could move, the staff struck his wand, shattering it in two. He was instantly turned back into his original form, a sickly looking old man.

The water chamber holding Starfire disappeared, water and all, letting her fall a foot or so to the surface of the roof. After she regained her senses, she flew over to Robin.

"Robin! Are you hurt?" He still wasn't moving, but offered a low level grunt in response. Mumbo, meanwhile, had stood back up, and was attempting to make a run for it.

"You are not going anywhere!" Starfire said in a grave, determined voice. Her eyes lit up and she fired twin bolts of light from them. They struck Mumbo in the back, burning two holes through the thin fabric of his shirt, and sending him sprawling.

"Ouch! Ok ok...you win," he said as he picked himself up. Robin was staring to stir.

"It's...ok Starfire, he just knocked the wind out of me..." Robin said, gasping for air. He tried to stand, but winced in pain and collapsed again.

"I think he did somewhat more than that," Starfire said, grabbing Robin's arm and throwing it over her shoulder. "Here, I shall help you." Robin, who did not like in the least being helped to do much of anything, offered no complaint. Frankly, he hadn't the wind to start an argument. He reached into his belt and pulled out his communicator.

"You guys...alright?" He huffed into the machine. Cyborg was first to respond.

"You bet, the guy just up and disappeared a few seconds ago."

"Same here, nothing left of mine, either," Beast Boy chimed in.

"Me too," Raven said.

"We got...the original...right here..." Robin said. He sounded like he'd just finished running a marathon to the moon and back.

"Hey, Robin, you ok?" Cyborg asked. Robin then realized, to his approval, that he had his arm around Starfire's shoulders, and looked briefly into her almond shaped, green eyes.

"I've uhh, been worse." He said, smiling at Starfire. "Titans..." he paused to cough, "let's go home, this guy's under control."

Starfire flew, with Robins arm still draped over her shoulders, and the were soon gone.

"Uhhh, guys, how am I going to get down!" Mumbo yelled, waving his arms wildly, but there was no one there to hear his pleas.

The police, however, soon came by to scoop him up and put him in a nice, cold, drafty jail cell.

2.

"He hit you with a metal boxing glove?" Beast Boy was sitting alongside Robin's bed, as he unclipped his cape and threw it aside. He winced again. He was about to find out how bad the damage was, and he knew it was going to be bad.

"Yeah..." He said, lightly prodding the section of his chest that had taken the brunt of the blow.

"...cool!" Beast Boy said. "You gotta hand it to the guy, at least he's original."

"Yeah, I guess there's that."

"Well, come out when you're ready, we've got victory pizza waiting!" Beast Boy said, almost triumphantly. Robin was still feeling the burn of the injury he'd sustained, but pizza sounded pretty darn good just then.

"Check." He said. Beast Boy left, with a definite spring in his step. As Robin undid his uniform, there was a light knock at the door.

"Yeah?" He said, to whomever it was. When the door opened, it happened to be Starfire. She took a step and the door slid shut behind her.

"Oh, hey Star." He said. She had her fingers laced together behind her, and was wearing a big, Starfire sized smile.

"Are you...uninjured?" She said, her expression becoming a bit more serious as she spoke.

"Well, I'm about to find out, care to stick around?" Starfire put on her most concerned face, as Robin strained to lift his shirt over his head. She wore expression, but there was just a little excitement at seeing Robin sans shirt.

She felt privileged in some way.

When he'd managed to get the shirt off, he looked in the mirror to see the damage. After getting a good look, he turned to face her, and she saw it as well.

There was an ugly blue and purple bruise making its way across the right of his chest. Having looked at it, Robin could make an accurate diagnosis. It was probably a couple of cracked ribs, and he told Starfire as much.

"Oh, but we must get you to a medical treatment facility!" She seemed overly worried. Robin had had this same kind of trauma before, and there was no way he was going to a hospital to get it patched up.

It, to him, simply wasn't worth it.

"Forget about it Star, I'll just wrap it up, should be fine." He went to the drawer he kept his medical supplies in. The Batman had taught him, a long, long time ago, to be prepared to fix yourself. Hospitals had a habit of asking for personal information that a cape wearing super hero ought not be asked. He pulled out a long bandage, and set about trying to wrap it around him. This was harder than it at first sounded, and what he'd planned on doing quickly, then escorting Starfire to the pizza celebration, was turning into a circus act.

"Here, let me assist you," Starfire said, walking over and claiming the roll of bandages before Robin could offer an objection or otherwise. Her eyes carried with them an intense caring, deep concern, like she was about to attempt curing cancer, rather than wrapping a minor wound. Robin was touched, but was so lost in her eyes, he forgot about the world entire, and the pain coursing through him.

She walked slowly around him, wrapping the injured section of his torso, she hated to see him hurt. She could feel him shake every time she put a loop around the bruise. She wished that there was something she could do to take the pain away.

She realized that Robin, at that moment, was all she could think about. His life was all that mattered to her then.

She was almost done the roll, and finished by wrapping a few loops of it over his left shoulder, more or less securing it in place.

"There, is it too tight?" She asked as she was walking back round to the front. It was, far too tight, but Robin didn't want to disappoint. When he turned to face her, she was only a few inches from him. He could feel her breath on his neck, her hand was still laid on his shoulder where she'd just tucked a loose end in.

"No...it's...fine." They moved forward and their lips met, and for one moment, the entire world held its breath. They both closed their eyes and let the moment take them, let the moment last as long as the could, shut out everything, and just lived outside of time and space, for that one, short moment. Soon, though, the moment was over, and they pulled apart. When Robin opened his eyes, Starfire's cheeks were red, and she had a coy smile on her face. He matched it with his own smile, and leaned in for seconds.

"Yo, Robin, Starfire, pizza...NOW!" Cyborg shouted from the other room, innocently enough, though he could not possibly have known what he was disturbing. Robin and Starfire just sat, looking at each other, and Robin smiled again. He had a disappointed, but happy look on his face. An odd look, but he pulled it off fairly well. He took up Starfire's hand in his own. He gave it a little squeeze, and smiled again

"Shall we?" He said. She reached behind her and grabbed his shirt off of his bed. Quickly he pulled it on.

"Yes, let's," she said, and smiled.

In a few minutes, the victory pizza was had.

3.

The figure sat before his many TV monitors, looking over the fight with interest. Mumbo had done well, but not that well. After all, he'd been caught.

Cyborg fought with passion, Beast Boy lent humour, Raven, a mystery, could control the darkness, will it to do her bidding. All of this, the figure had seen before, and none of it was really knew. Still, the camera's had caught it all, and he was now seeing it all. But there was something else. Something that he'd not noticed before.

The figure leaned in close to one of the monitors.

It showed first, the beginning of the pursuit, all of them splitting up. That one, Starfire, was left to make a choice, and so she chose. She chose to follow Robin. When they caught Mumbo, a fight ensued, and during it, they protected each other. The work of teammates, or something more? The figure, to be honest, was not sure. He scanned the videos of that scene, looking for something. Ahhh, there it is, in their eyes. He could see exactly what he needed. He could see the thing that he had been searching for all these months, the thing he could use to take his revenge

What the figure saw, in Robin and Starfire's eyes, was love.

Who the figure was, well, he was Slade. And he had a hypothesis to test.


	2. Chapter 2

4.

Another day, another alarm bell. This time it didn't catch the Titans entirely by surprise, but it did cause a stir. Two days in a row, it was turning out to be a busy week.

The group assembled in the main foyer, like they'd done so many times before, and looked up at the giant screen to see what evil was befalling Jump City this day.

Oh my.

It was the one person that none of them ever wanted to see, the one that, no matter how many times they put him down, he got back up, with seemingly more strength and determination than the last time.

To their combined horror and disappointment, it was Slade.

"Slade..." Robin hissed. Everyone, with the possible exception of he himself, noticed Starfire take a few shuffling steps towards him, and stand almost uncomfortably close to him. Sure he could feel her there, her hair brushing against him, her breath, but he was completely fixed to the screen.

That screen that he was so affixed to, was showing Slade, but he wasn't doing much, just standing there in the middle of the street, randomly firing some manner of laser into the buildings around him.

"What's he doing?" Beast Boy asked. The group looked for a moment or two longer.

"Redecorating?" Raven offered.

"He's nuts..." Cyborg said. Somehow, despite the mask that covered all but his left eye, Slade managed to portray the very picture of calm, slowly moving his gun this way and that, blowing holes in everything but, it seemed, the panicked people that ran around him, trying to get away.

"He's going to kill someone if we don't stop him." Robin said through clenched teeth. He still hadn't moved his eyes. Every so often Slade would look right at the camera, like he knew it was there.

Knowing Slade, he probably did know it was there.

"Let's go!" Robin said, running out of the room. The rest of the Titans didn't waste any time in following him.

With Slade, they couldn't afford to take any chances. He had to be stopped, right now.

5.

"Look out, he's crazy!" Someone yelled as a bolt of light shot over their shoulder. People were running in every direction, but amazingly, Slade had not managed to hit a single one of them yet.

No one really knew this, but he wasn't trying to hit them.

If he were trying, they would all be dead.

"Yes, go, run for your lives. That's it." Slade said, too quietly to be to anyone but himself.

"That's enough Slade!" The Titans rounded the corner,Robin was yelling his commands as they came.

"Titans, go!"

"Ahh, finally." Slade said, again, to himself. He threw the gun aside and turned to meet the rush.

This had been the plan all along.

When the Titans met him, he immediately went on the defensive, blocking the flurry of attacks they sent against him. His goals for this exchange were very simple, but to accomplish them, he first had to eliminate a few of the Titans from the picture.

When Cyborg came at him, he threw out a new little toy of his, something he'd come up with, a small, flat projectilethat carried with itan EMP, or Electro-Magnetic-Pulse Generator. It landed at Cyborg's feet and went off in a small explosion of light.

Cyborg was still in motion when his systems shut down.

_Good_, Slade thought,_ he'll be down at least a few minutes_.

The lifeless form of Cyborg fell to the ground and skidded a few dozen feet before coming to a dead stop.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Oh yes, the witch. A lamp post behind Slade started to glow black, then started to bend around on itself, coiling like a snake ready to strike. It lunged out at Slade, who jumped easily out of its way, and before landing, threw another device at Raven. Just as it got to her, it exploded, and dozens of tendrils of some kind of fabric wrappedthemselves around her, cocooning her on the spot. She went crashing down to the ground, and was thus disabled.

_Two down, one to go._

He fought off an attack of Robins, swatting him out of the air with the back of his closed fist. Robin went flying, and crashed into a parked car. Starfire, instantly fuelled by what had just happened, fired a volley at Slade. He danced out of the way, and punched her squarely on the jaw as she flew by. She went skittering off along the ground and stopped in a pile, not out cold, but down for at least a count of ten.

Now, for Beast Boy. The green lad came running atSlade from behind, and surprised him.Beast Boywas in the form of a rhinoceros and sent Slade to the ground with a resounding crash. Slade quickly recovered however, and, while still lying on the ground, he threw yet another capsule at Beast Boy. This one, admittedly was not his idea. He'd actually borrowed this one from Robin, from when he was having his little fit, as the Rogue thief, X. The capsule exploded into a mass of grey green slime, and covered Beast Boy before he had a chance to move. Now, no matter what form he took, he would not be going anywhere, leaving Slade to deal with the real reason he'd drawn the Titans out. Starfire, and Robin.

They were both starting to pick themselves up, but Robin had the tangled wreckage of the car he'd slammed into to deal with, so Slade turned to face Starfire, who was, in fact, perfect for the next part of his plan. She flew at him and rained green energy down on him, but he was too fast. He dodged all of her attacks, then jumped up into the air and had her by the throat before she could move. They both landed, and he held her in one outstretched hand, slowly choking the life out of her. She kicked out with her feet, but they couldn't reach him, and when she brought her arms down on his, it felt like hammering a log of English oak.

"Now, your love will be his undoing, my dear." Slade said, squeezing harder. She didn't really hear him, in her current state, and even if she did, it did not register. She tried another kick, but it, like all the others, came up short. There was a small crunch from somewhere in her throat, and pain shot through her. Her eyes started to roll back in her head.

"STARFIRE!" Robin yelled, as he powered the last part of the car off of him. He ran, passed Cyborg, who was still offline, Raven, who thrashed around in her cocoon like an inch worm, and Beast Boy who was still stuck in place. Robin launched himself up into the air and threw himself at Slade.

Bingo.

Slade saw it there, in his eyes, more intense than he'd seen it in the video of yesterday's fight.

He saw love.

Slade tossed Starfire aside like a rag doll, and defended against Robins attack.

He had to see how deep the seam ran. What would he give for her.

"That's right, Robin, fight to save her." He put his arms in front of him, and blocked a volley of punches.

"You realize that I will kill her if you do not defeat me, here and now. So COME AT ME!" Slade sneered. Robin was furious, which was just what Slade wanted. He heard a small moan and a series of coughs from behind him, and knew that Starfire was awake, but basically out of commission. Good, now for that last part. Robin was firing punches out randomly and without thought, so catching one and turning it into a painful joint lock proved an easy task.

"Now, know that I can kill you whenever I choose, Robin. Know that I have that power." He whispered into Robin's ear. Robin tried to get free, but the more he struggled, the greater the pressure on his arm.

"However, I feel like being charitable. I think I shall save it for another day, my former apprentice. Now, go to her." He shoved Robin as hard as he could, and sent him tumbling along the ground, and threw a few smoke screen capsules on the ground. They exploded in giant plumes of smoke, and when it cleared, Slade was nowhere to be seen.

Robin's head was spinning, his chest and now, right arm, were in considerable amounts of pain, but he still dragged himself to his feet. A small distance from him, Starfire lay, barely moving. Her hands were at her throat, and he could see that she was coughing rather violently.

He ran over to her, as fast as his tired legs would carry him.

What he didn't know, was that Slade was still watching, for he still had to know, had to _see_ just how much that little green eyed girl really meant to him.

"Star, are you alright? Speak to me!" She was clutching at her throat, and coughing. He cradled her head in his lap, and lightly caressed her forehead until she'd stopped.

"I...am...ok..." she said, searching desperately for breath.It was more or less, a lie. "We must...help the others." She said. She was getting her wind back, but it hurt to breathe.

"You're not ok, at all, Star..." He said, moving his hand from her forehead to her cheek. There was a little bit of a bruise, where her neck met her jaw line, but it was her rasped breathing and panicked look that led Robin to that conclusion.

"You...saved...me..." She said, and grabbed his hand on her cheek with both of hers. She pulled herself up and they locked in an embrace, and soon, both of them felt a little better.

Slade saw it all, and no one knew it, but under his mask, he was smiling.

Once they'd separated themselves, they went to each one of their teammates and tried to free them of their various prisons. Starfire fired a low yield blast, which melted the goo off of Beast Boy, and maybe singed his hair a little. Robin used the edge of one of his boomerangs to extricate Raven from her cocoon, an action which almost brought a look of gratitude to her face.

"Thanks," she said.

They all gathered around Cyborg, who was still in the last position he'd been in at the moment the EMP went off.

"Anyone know where his on switch is?" Raven muttered. They all looked at him as a dog would look at a car with its hood up; a bunch of stuff that they would never hope to understand. Suddenly, there was a small tone, the sound of a computer booting up, and the colour returned to Cyborgs robotic parts. He started to rub the human side of his head.

"Anyone get the licence number of that bulldozer?"

They all started to walk away.

"So...should I order the victory pizza?" Beast Boy asked. They all looked at each other with some questioning.

"What did we win?" Robin asked rhetorically. "Slade just shot a bunch of holes in a bunch of things, and then beat us up for a little while...whatever this was, it wasn't a victory." Beast Boy looked disappointed at that, but satisfied.

Slade, who was quite satisfiedas well, jumped down off the roof where he'd been hiding, and returned to his lair to prepare forthe next day.

It was going to be a good day, indeed.

6.

That evening, the group were still recovering. With the exception of Raven, who'd left the majority of her problems in a tangled pile in the middle of downtown Jump City, the rest were still suffering the after effects of the battle with Slade.

"That guy is seriously losing it..." Beast Boy said, picking lumps of that grey mud off of him.

"Yeah, I mean, what was the deal? He's not even committing crimes anymore, he's just trying to annoy us." Cyborg said. He had a panel dislodged from his left arm and was tinkering around inside with a screwdriver.

"Something tells me we're going to find out what he's up to, today was definitely not the end of it," Robin said, reflectively. He was playing the detective again, trying to figure out the next ten moves. They all thought he was right, however. Slade was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them. Cyborg finished what he was doing, and snapped the panel back on his arm.

"Well, whatever he has planned, it had better wait until morning." He stood up and yawned, stretching his arms up over his head. "Goodnight." He said, saying it slowly, comically.

"I think I'm going to turn in, too. Slade will probably have us up, nice and early." Raven said, moving towards her room. "Goodnight."

"Yeah, I think we should all get some sleep, its been a tough day, and tomorrow won't get any easier." Robin said. Beast Boy was already on his way to his room, completely preoccupied with a glob of goo that had been twisted into his hair. He muttered something about bad hair days before disappearing around the corner. Robin was walking towards his room, when Starfire stopped him, placed her hand on his shoulder. He turned around and she looked deeply into his eyes.

"You saved me today, Robin." She said, not removing her hand from his shoulder. Robin wasn't exactly sure he had saved her, it was more like Slade had let her go, in favour of going after him. He decided to let her think that he did save her, for some reason, he thought it might be rudeto make her try to see it otherwise. She was still looking long into him, waiting for an answer.

"Sure...but its nothing you haven't done for me, nothing we haven't done for each other a million times over. We're a team Star, it's what we do."

Starfire thought about this, and he was right. But it wasn't the fact that he saved her that was sticking in her mind, it was the voracity with which he did it. She remembered the lights going out, the black seeping in fro mthe sides of her eyes, Slade's hand around her throat, and then him screaming her name and running full boar towards her. Sure, they'd all protected, saved, rescued each other a hundred times over, but that,the passion of his actions, the emotion in his voice, that was extra. That was what she was swooning over.

"You did more than just save me, I was...close to death. You fought to free me from his grip...I remember. Thank you..." She put her other hand on his other shoulder, he responded by putting his hands on her hips.

"It was...nothing." They leaned into one another and kissed. Longer and forever more fulfilling than the day before. Starfire, after a time, pulled away. Robin looked at her, to find the problem, and she looked like she wanted to say something.

"What?" He asked.

"Oh...it is just that...could you...remove your mask?" Robin didn't have to think very hard about that one. He wanted to share everything with Starfire.

He peeled the mask from his face, revealing to Starfire, two piercing, blue eyes. She stood on her tip toes to reach his face and they kissed again. Robin let the mask limply from his hand, his attention was on other things entirely. They stopped again.

"I love you..." Stafire was about to say _'I love you, Robin'_ but that didn't sound right at all.

"I love you, Dick."

"I love you too, Kori." He responded, and they went right back to their passionate embrace.

It would be about ten hours before they let go of that embrace again.

7.

Love,

They walked, awkwardly, their lips pressed together towards Starfire's room. Robin thought, only vaguely (his mind was quickly being consumed by the beauty he was kissing) that this had been put off for far too long, this embrace, these feelings. They knew why they didn't express their feelings for each other in the past, they were after all, teammates, but they knew it would end up like this sooner or later, there was simply nothing else for it. Teammates shouldn't do this, but soon they wouldn't be teammates. Soon, they would be lovers.

Nothing, to either of them, had ever felt so right.

They reached Starfire's bed, and she leaned back, pulling Robin down on tope of her. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, and Robin responded by rolling over so they were laying beside each other. Still, their lips refused to part. Starfire moved her hand to cup Robins cheek, and lightly stroked his face with her thumb. Meanwhile, Robin moved his hands slowly down her back, towards the zipper that held her purple dress on.

In love they were joined, in it they were whole, and in love, soon, they would be doomed.

Love.


	3. Chapter 3

8.

Slade ran, he would have to be quick to make this work properly. He'd sowed the seeds that needed to be sown and soon, they would bloom, and then it would be time to reap.

And to reap, you first need Reapers.

His destination was not difficult to find, even though up until this point in his life, he'd avoided the place like the plague. The Jump City Super Max Prison. It was the Titans favourite arch nemesis depository, the Arkham Asylum of Titan town. It was the perfect place to go if you planned on doing a lot of damage very quickly, or at least recruit an army to do that damage for you.

What the guards placed out front saw that night, was in fact very little. It was a dark, starless night, and the humming white flourescent lights on either side of them offered a perfect view of a small space of naught but a few feet in front of them. All of the training in the world could not prepare them for the assault they were about to endure. Then again, the local police were never very good at being anything but punching bags to people like Slade.

If it wasn't for the Titans, the jail behind them would have been empty, and they would probably be dead.

Slade came out of the darkness, moving like a ghost, not staying in one place for long enough for either of them to see anything but the glint of light from his mask. He took the first one out with a right cross, splattering a nice tail of blood along the wall behind the guard, then Slade was quickly on to the other one. This one saw it coming, to a degree, and managed to make a swing with the but end of the rifle he was carrying. This pinged off Slade's mask without making much of difference, Slade barely even registered it. He grabbed the guard by the throat and lifted him two feet into the air.

"Just a bug trying to swat back at the real men..." he muttered, and threw the guard back against the wall. He bounced off and collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Slade's business was within, but thanks to another little invention of his, he would be able to remain without, and let his business handle the hard part. He removed it from his belt, and flipped it over thoughtfully in his hand. Such a small little device, and yet it was about to do so much. He reminded himself to be very proud of himself when all this was over. With all the careful planning, the new trinkets he'd invented, the manipulation of two fools in love, it was a masterpiece worthy of Van Gogh himself.

But enough contemplation, his presence would not remain a secret forever.

With an overhand toss, he threw the device over the wall, and into the main area of the prison, where he hoped, no, really, he knew that it would disable the electronic locks on the doors. A small signal, delivered by the device, would mimic the electronic keys the jailors used. That would, in turn, open all of the cells within the range of the signal, which would be every cell in the prison. Every cell, at exactly the same time. He backed up a few steps, back into the darkness, and waited for a sign.

A few moments later, screams and gunfire roared out of the prison, and a sign is just what he had.

He walked back to the door and set a small charge on it. Another few steps back, and a button pressed, a Slade sized hole was blown out of it. He locked his hands behind him, and walked...strolled into the prison.

Inside, there was a war going on, and the prison staff were losing. The ring of gunfire was all around, and bodies were flying left and right. Slade still walked, slowly, methodically, turning his head this way and that, revelling in the carnage that he had created. A guard came running at him, wielding a nightstick, and was met with a solid fist planted on the bridge of his nose. He fell immediately, out cold. Slade continued walking.

He located one of his former associates, Cinderblock, bulldozing down guards like a mack truck. Actually, located is probably the wrong word, at 12 feet tall, and made of solid concrete, Cinderblock was never located, for he always made his presence felt well ahead of time.

"Cinderblock! Come here!" He feared, for a moment, that Cinderblock would no longer obey him. He was impossibly stupid, but Slade, after all, was the reason that he was in prison in the first place, and he may have held just a bit of a grudge. How they extricated him from Plasmus and Overload Slade would never know, he knew he didn't think of a way to do it. At the moment, he didn't really care, however.

Cinderblock fought his way over to Slade, and stood in front of him, looking down with a blank, vacant stare.

Good, he was still loyal. As loyal as he was ever likely to be, at any rate.

"I think a little crowd control is in order." Slade said to him. Cinderblock responded by turning, slowly and purposefully, and yelling at the top of his lungs. It was an immense noise, the ground shook beneath everyone's feet, and as soon as it was over, everyone had stopped fighting, and were all looking at Cinderblock, and more importantly, Slade.

"Good, I think we have their attention now." Slade walked forward a little bit, until he was in front of Cinderblock, and started to speak, in a voice that he was sure everyone would hear.

"For all the guards and prison staff that are able to leave, I advise you do so now. You will not be offered another chance." A few of the faces staring at him wavered, looking around them, then the bodies attached to them ran out the door. When all of the prison folk were safely away, tail tucked firmly between their legs, Slade addressed the inmates, who were mostly still standing, save for a few of the weaker ones (Slade noticed, in passing, that Mumbo had not faired very well without that little toy wand of his).

"I have given you all your freedom, for that, you owe me." He said, in a commanding voice that everyone of them seemed to listen intently to.

"Most of you will have your reign of the city, but for some of you, I have specific tasks. Some of you, may even get the chance to strike back at those that put you here." Slade was speaking calmly, and quietly. Even at the head of a thousand unruly, bloodthirsty criminals, he was the purest example of composure.

"You mean we'll get to kill the Teen Titans?" Someone yelled out.

"That, my friend, depends entirely on you. For now, I want you all to go out, and do what you do best, all but you," he levelled his finger at one of the inmates, "you, you, you and you." It was like he was picking a hockey team for a neighbourhood game of pick up.

"The rest of you, I want you to pillage, plunder, and devastate this city. By this time tomorrow, I want to see hell, everywhere." There was a roar of approval from the assembled mass, and they all left, ran out of the huge steel double doors like the murderous rabble that they were. All, that is, except the ones that Slade had pointed at, they remained fixed to their positions, in a rather odd display of loyalty.

Really, they were afraid. They heard what Slade was capable of, and wanted to stay on whatever good side he had.

"Cinderblock, go and wake Plasmus, will you?" He said, without looking up. Cinderblock moved off without any objection. After all the time behind bars, he still mindlessly followed Slade without a thought to the otherwise.

Slade pulled a small computer chip out of his belt, and threw it on the ground. He looked up, and threw another object, a sharp one, towards an overhanging power cable. It split and sent jolts of electricity everywhere, and when it landed, one of its ends landed on the computer chip. The electricity started to gather, like a pile of sand, slowly forming a hill, with the chip hovering in its centre. Soon enough, the pile sprouted arms, legs, and Overload was reborn.

"Now, for the rest of you, we have work to do."

9.

It was night. A little depressing, since intense cloud coverage buried the moon and stars, leaving a pitch black blanket in its stead. Where Robin was, however, he could not even see the sky. He lay awake, comfortably between the sheets of Starfire's bed, supporting his head in one hand. Starfire slept quietly beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. He was trying very hard not to feel extremely proud of his actions over the past couple of hours, but he couldn't help it. For some reason, Slade had chose to go nuts in the middle of town, and spout off about this and that, killing him, killing her, and that one action had driven them together.

Actually, it had driven them together four times, if Robin's count was accurate.

Starfire stirred beside him. He felt her take a deeper breath, and slowly move her head around. She moved a hand up to his bare chest, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. She looked completely at peace, and still completely beautiful. After a moment, she was asleep again.

He moved the hand that wasn't underneath her up to his face to readjust his mask, before remembering it wasn't there. He had taken it off for her, hadn't he? She had asked, and he had responded, without any deeper thought than _'that sounds about right to me.' _He'd had trouble taking off the mask before, lord knows the last person who'd asked him to remove it got more than an earful. In retrospect, he'd wished he'd been a little nicer to her, it wasn't like she was asking him to do...anything, just show her his eyes. She was wearing a mask at the time, too, and she'd removed it in a show of confidence.

'_I don't know, Barbara, it's kind of a big deal...'_ That's what he'd said, and then she walked away, and never put the mask on again. He supposed it wasn't his fault that she left, Bruce was as much to blame, always railing into her about training and technique, and he supposed it also wasn't his fault that she was shot by the Joker and put into a wheelchair for the rest of her life. It wasn't his fault, but he always felt it was.

But the mask...was it so important? For The Batman, it was. For Batman, it was everything, it made him. He'd stopped wearing the mask years ago, the mask was wearing him now. Robin swore he would never become like Bruce, so emotionally detached, an island unto himself. When Starfire...Kori had asked him to take it off, he knew why he'd done it, because he refused to let it wear him. To him, the mask was to conceal his identity, and if it ever became more than that, he would be in trouble. He was in fact, totally confident that he could remove that Robin mask, hang it on a hook and never wear it again. He would never let it wear him, never.

It was then that the alarm went off, and his train of thought was forever derailed.

10.

"How did this happen?" Robin asked, more to himself, and yelled to himself, at that. They were looking at the screen again, for the third time in as many days, but what they were seeing this time was simply not possible. Every criminal they could ever remember putting away was running amok downtown, rioting and stealing, breaking windows and destroying parked cars. From the bottom of the picture, a very familiar face came screaming into view, driving a tricked out, black and red motorcycle.

"Woah yeah! Destruction!" He fired a pistol into a few street lamps and showered the area in glass.

"Didn't we put him in jail?" Raven asked rhetorically.

"We put most of these guys in jail." Cyborg replied. A giant, rampaging robot was pounding on the side of the building. "Atlas?"

"No one defeats Atlas! Come out and fight!"

"Atlas..." they all said in unison, adding an exasperated sigh.

"We've gotta go, right now." Robin said. He was still fixing one of his gloves into its proper place, but he moved to leave as he did.

"Woah, wait a second!" Cyborg said, grabbing onto his shoulder.

"There's 200 criminals tearing up the city, and you want to wait?" Robin spoke with his usual passion. That, they guessed was why he was the leader. This time, however, his passion was overriding his better judgement.

"And what are you gonna do, go and arrest them all? Even if we called in the East coast team, it would still be 200 against 10. We'd get ourselves killed" Cyborg felt he had to yell to get Robin's attention, and whether the volume of his delivery made any difference at all, Robin's attention was what he had.

"What do you suggest?"

"We call in the heavy hitters," he replied, smiling, just a little.


	4. Chapter 4

11.

They called the Titans East, right enough, and they said they would be there as fast as they could. Presently, the Titans of Jump City were gathered around their giant view screen, trying to place a call.

"I don't know about this, Cy..." Robin said. He ran a gloved hand through his hair.

"Look, they said to call them if their was an emergency, something tells me this qualifies." An explosion in the distance shattered the night, confirming Cyborgs assertion.

"Ok...do it."

Cyborg punched at the keyboard, and a moment later the screen blinked to life. On it, was a green man, wearing a purple cape.

"JLA headquarters," he said, sounding like they'd just called a pizza place or a taxi.

"Hi J'onn," Robin said, with little joy in his voice.

"Titans," J'onn said, trying to be curtious.

"J'onn, we have a problem."

"What is it, Robin?" J'onn took a couple of steps toward his end of the screen.

"The prison here in jump city has had a massive malfunction, every single inmate is out, running the streets." J'onn's expression never changed, he merely looked at something on his side of the screen, out of the Titans field of view.

"I can send-"

"Send who you can." Robin said, "We're gonna need them all."

"Very well. They shall be mobilized and in Jump City within the half hour. What are you going to do in the mean time?"

"We," Robin said, "are going to war."

12.

"No one can stop Johnny Rancid!" He was still tooling around recklessly on his bike. Robin tossed his staff straight into the spokes of Rancid's bike, which sent it into an end over end flip, and sent Rancid flying into a lamp post.

"Titan's, go!" They all rushed into the sea of orange jump suits. Most of them were simple pick pockets or some other kind of petty thief, and so were ill prepared to deal with the Titans when they got there. All five of them were tossing villains left and right, felling them with surprising ease. It wasn't going to last, however. For every one they took out, two more took their place, it was a flood, and they were drowning. Raven elevated a group of them and sent them hurtling throughthe sky, while Beast Boy, in the shape of a Triceratops, bulldozed a path through the mob. It was fairly obvious to the Titans, however, that they were destined to lose this conflict. As they knocked more down, more got back up, and so the cycle continued.

"Any bright ideas, fearless leader?" Raven yelled, over the din of the battle.

"Yeah, fight harder!" Robin was kicking and punching and flying through the air, every blow connecting, sending people reeling. He was going to run out of energy soon, though, his knuckles were sore from all the punching, his muscles screamed at him. He noticed the ebb and flow of the battle was separating him from the rest of the team, and they were all being pushed in different directions. It didn't matter, though. In a few minutes they'd all be too tired to fight anyway.

Suddenly, a green arrow whipped out of the darkness, hitting one of the inmates in the shoulder and sticking him to the wall.

"Need some help, junior?" Green Arrow, protector of Star City and Justice League reserve Member, came running out of the night. He stopped beside Robin, who had managed to fight his way out of the mob.

"Nice shooting, Tex." He said, cocking a sarcastic smile in Green Arrow's direction.

"Kid, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Shall we?"

"Sure, but where are the others?"

"Don't worry, they're here." Green Arrow ran off and started to get into it with about 20 different baddies. That was Oliver Queen alright, always ready for a fight.

A big, big fight.

Without a thought in his head, other than perhaps a brief hope that Starfire was alright, he launched himself back into the fray.

It was going to be a long, damn, night.

13.

Beast Boy was coming up with every little trick he could think of to dispatch the oncoming throng, turning into every animal he thought would make any difference. Dinosaurs of every description, a wolf, a gorilla, even several varieties of snakes. And despite the odds, he was actually winning.

He was getting tired, though. All that changing stretched his body to its limits, and he could feel the strain in his bones.

"SKREEEEEEEE!" It was a shout...a scream, a horribly loud scream. It wasn't one spawned from anger or fear, it was like an eagles call, only a million times louder. Every pair of hands in the area, including his, shot to every set of ears, which is exactly what the originator of the scream wanted.

A woman, a beautiful woman as far as Beast Boy was concerned, came jumping off the roof of a one floor department store to his left, and started to take out bad guys left and right. Beast Boy took his hands from his ears, and watched her work, somewhat astonished.

"You ok, kid?" She yelled, while holding off several of the mob. Beast Boy ran to join her, staying as his own form, but managing to lay out several inmates with a few well placed punches.

"Yeah...uhhh, who are you?" He asked, not wanting to be rude, but knowing this wasn't time or the place to worry about that sort of thing.

"The name's Black Canary, pleased to make your acquaintance." She threw another punch, sending an ugly, tattooed man down to his back.

"Cool," Beast Boy said, turning into a ram and knocking over a small group of the mob.

"My name's Beast Boy." They continued fighting in a circle, quickly becoming surrounded.

"Well Beast Boy, I hate to say it, but we're outnumbered here."

"Any more of your friends gonna show up?" He asked her, but was in the middle of a fist fight, so some of the words came out jumbled.

"Yeah, they're here," she brought her fist back and drove it forward, laying another prisoner out, "somewhere." A blue streak came down out of the sky, and plowed into the crowd, driving much of them on top of each other and into a wall.

"They're closer than you think." Said the new fighter. Beast Boy's jaw dropped when he saw who it was.

Standing before him, was the Man of Steel, Superman.

"...can I have your autograph?" He said finally. It was the best thing he could think of to say.

"Maybe after this is all over. Now, we have work to do."

What a guy.

14.

Cyborg was a little embarrassed to say it, but he was actually enjoying this a little. Battle, for him, was always invigorating, and this was one hell of a battle. Plus he was getting to spend some quality time with a couple of big league super heroes.

"Flash, up high!" Cyborg spied one of the rioters trying to get the drop on the first one, the world's fastest man, Flash. Before Cyborg had even finished talking, Flash had somehow gotten to the top of the building and subdued the would be attacker.

"Thank's Cy!" He said jovially, waving.

"Stop messing around and get back down here!" Flash disappeared again, and before Cyborg could even think of how he did it, he was back on the ground, and standing beside the person who had just admonished him, the magician Zatanna.

"Z, you're always so negative." He said, in a playful tone.

"Well, we do have work to do down here, you know. This isn't a social visit." She said, and turned to face the enemies that were still standing.

"Ylf nac slanimirc!" She yelled, and waved her wand in the direction of a group of men in orange jumpsuits. They levitated into the air, screaming and flailing around like boated fish. Flash stood and looked at them reflectively, with his arms crossed over his chest.

"How long you gonna keep them up there?" She looked at him and smiled. Oh how she enjoyed tormenting those that deserved such treatment.

"Truh annog si siht!" And they all came crashing down.

Yeah, no doubt, Cyborg was enjoying this.

15.

Raven couldn't help but see the humour with who she'd managed to find over the course of the battle. It was the one man whose shadow she felt she'd been in for the longest time. He, who she'd been compared to her for her entire super hero career, at least in terms of temperament. Actually, they were comically alike. In a different universe, they might have been confused for family. According to Robin, even their faces were similar, though this guy wore a mask, and wasn't likely to take it off for her.

Secret identities and all that.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" A wave of black magic drove a group of the inmates down the street.

"Impressive." He said.

"Thanks," she replied.

"Ready for more?" He asked

"Always."

They started to run towards the next group of rioters, both of their capes were flaring out behind them.

"You got a name, kid?"

"It's Raven."

"Good. I assume you know mine?" He was at almost a full sprint but still managed to speak in a monotonous drone. Just like Raven was managing to do. His tone wasn't sarcastic in design, but somehow you got the idea that he was being just that.

"Of course, Batman." She smiled a little. They ran a little further, and were almost at their next target before he spoke again.

"Tell Robin I said hi."

16.

Starfire was managing quite well on her own, her green fire, her strength, and the ability of flight, all great assets in a fight against an unruly horde. Still, when Wonder Woman and Super Girl showed up, she welcomed the help.

"There sure are a lot of these guys!" Super Girl said as she plowed through a small group.

"Just keep going, we'll get it under control!" Wonder Woman yelled over the din. Starfire flew through the air firing green at anything that moved and wasn't dressed in brightly coloured spandex. Even with those two down there, it wasn't enough, they were being surrounded and slowly overpowered. Even those two were losing...definitely not good. Suddenly, someone shot a flare into the crowd, which was enough to disperse them, and allow the three heroes to get back to the fighting. As Starfire took out a few more rioters, she looked to the roof of a building across the street, and saw where the flare had come from.

It looked like Speedy...almost.

He jumped off the building and landed, just across the street from Starfire, and removed from his back a red bow and started firing arrows into the crowd. He was dressed differently...a black leather coat, and a pair of orange sunglasses rather than his usual mask. Starfire flew over to him, as Super Girl and Wonder Woman plowed back into battle.

"Speedy?" She asked.

"...Long story, Starfire. And call me Arsenal."

"Arsenal?"

"Don't repeat yourself." They both fought as they spoke, Spee...Arsenal firing arrows, Starfire firing her special kind of projectiles.

"But I do not understand...what has happened?" Arsenal looked distracted, still tracking targets and shooting down the criminals. Starfire noted that many of the arrows were catching the rioters in the legs, or when possible, going through their clothes only and sticking them to the surrounding walls.

"Let's just say there was a shadow I had to get out from under, forge my own identity."

"But where are the rest of the Titans East?"

"They're here and there. We got here as fast as we could."

"The help is much appreciated. We can not handle this by ourselves..." Starfire looked like she was getting tired.

"I know. Don't worry, we've got your back." Arsenal yanked some manner of gun out of a hidden pocket. He fired it into the crowd and a man fell, a needle sticking out of his neck.

Tranquillizer, Starfire thought.

Arsenal dashed off into the crowd and started throwing his fists, Starfire continued to fight and throw bolts of energy, and slowly they fought back. She watched the boy she once knew as Speedy run off into the crowd, and wondered...what happened to him?


	5. Chapter 5

17.

"Green Lantern, do you read me?" J'onn's voice blared out over Green Lanterns communicator. Green Lantern, or John Stewart to his friends, was flying over Jump City, making sure none of the felons tried to make a quick escape. To his surprise and mild disappointment, none had. They were all staying in the main downtown area, causing chaos and destruction. With the Titans and the Justice League down there, he knew it wouldn't last.

"Green Lantern here. Go ahead J'onn."

"I am having the ground teams drive the inmates towards the centre of town, I need you to secure them all once they get there."

Green Lantern smiled at that. Clean up crew, perfect...

"Understood, I'm on my way."

18.

"Right, J'onn. Good planning my man!"

"Ummm...Thanks, Flash." Flash quickly...very, very quickly dispensed with a nearby rioter, and told Cyborg and Zatanna of the plan.

"Guys, J'onn is getting everyone to drive these creeps towards the middle of town. Green Lantern will take them from there."

"Take them...where?" Cyborg asked.

"Apparently they got the prison back in working order. It was some electrical disturbance that knocked out the Mag locks on the doors. Localized, and no longer functioning."

"Hmmmm...that sounds wrong..." Another wave of inmates rounded the corner and came towards them.

"Worry about that later. Now, we got fighting to do!" Flash ran off so fast that the wind he kicked up blew Zatanna's hair completely out of shape. Her hand shot up to her magicians hat to keep it from flying away.

"Why does he always have to do that..." she muttered.

19.

Raven created a wave, which knocked the entire group of people she and Batman had to deal with towards where they had to push them. It was not the first thing she'd done to impress Batman that night, and to be fair to her, he was starting to get a little bored with the lack of work she was throwing his way. Still, enough of the inmates were filtering through to keep his fists pumping, at least most of the time.

"Keep going, we need to get them all to the middle of town!" Batman yelled. He was enjoying his time with the young girl, there was something about her that he really liked. Perhaps her fashion sense.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Another wave and another batch of the escapees sent toward their final destination.

Yes, he was liking this, but she had to work on her vocabulary.

20.

The plan, such as it was, was working. All the groups of super heroes were driving their respective groups of inmates towards the towns centre. Robin could see the droving packs of orange jumpsuits slowly converging at the city's main intersection.

"Keep going, kid, we still got work to do!" Green Arrow yelled, swinging his bow like a club and driving back four escapees. He shot an arrow at one trying to escape, and pinned his pant leg to the ground.

"Don't worry GA, I got this." Robin said with an unusual calm. He lobbed a few metallic balls into the road in front of the inmates, and they all exploded, driving the whole group back. Green Arrow laid out another, and pulled another arrow from his quiver. It had a larger tip than a normal arrow, and was not pointed, but round.

"I hate these trick arrows..." he muttered, before nocking the arrow and firing at the feet of the rioters. It exploded, and back they were driven. He loaded another arrow and fired it at another prisoner who thought he might try running for it. It burst on contact, and covered him in a sticky yellow goo. Robin looked at Green Arrow, confused.

"Glue arrow." He said simply, then turned and ran back into the fray. Robin could see that this fight might be coming to an end soon, the riot was about to be contained.

21.

Superman and Beast Boy (in the shape of a very large Wooly Mammoth) both plowed the inmates into the larger group that was forming. Black Canary was rounding up any of the stragglers the two of them missed. There weren't many, but she was, after all, only human, and when two of them came at her, she lost track of things and missed the third one coming up behind her. Just as he was about to bring his fist down on the back of her head, an arrow pierced through his right thigh, and he backed off, screaming in pain. Black Canary wasted no time in turning and decking him, then looking up to see where the arrow had come from. Green Arrow responded by tipping his cap, then returning to the fight. Black Canary smiled a little, and turned back to collecting the runners.

Superman flew out of the sky, he was doing the same as Black Canary, trying to find the ones that were missed. He picked them up, two at a time and dropped them into the middle of town, at the now huge crowd. Along with Wonder Woman and Super Girl, they soon had everyone they could see rounded up. It was time for Green Lantern to do his thing.

"John, you're up!" Superman said into his communicator, and Green Lantern, who had been hovering over the main crowd of people, pointed his ring straight down, and created a bubble around the whole of the prison inmate population. The bubble was green, but see through, like the glass of a wine bottle. The inmates clawed at it, punched it, trying in vain to break its hold on them.

Just like that, the fight was over, and the hero's had won.

Robin found himself standing near a familiar face, though what was covering had changed.

"Speedy!" He shouted, the boy he shouted at turned slowly, readjusting his sunglasses.

"Hey, Robin. Actually, it's Arsenal now." He went to Robin, and shook his hand.

"Arsenal...what do you mean?"

"You know, making a name for myself and all that. Tired of living under someone's shadow." Arsenal pulled his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and stared at something over Robin's shoulder. Robin turned, and saw Green Arrow, talking to Black Canary. "I just had to be my own man, instead of someone else's." Arsenal said, returning his glasses to their proper spot, and adjusting his jacket.

"You should try it some time," he concluded. Robin smiled a little, and seemed to consider the idea.

"Maybe some day, I will." He said.

"Yo Robin, get over here!" It was Cyborg, he was with the rest of the Titans. Robin turned back to Arsenal and again offered his hand. Arsenal took it, and shook it vigorously.

"See ya, Robin."

"Later, Arsenal."

The Titans gathered together. All of them were wearing smiles, even Raven.

"Wooo yah!" Cyborg yelled, "That was great!" They all were saying similar things, again, even Raven (though far less jubilantly). Only Robin stayed silent, seemingly distracted by something. He stared at the prisoners behind Green Lanterns bubble, and puzzled over something. Starfire flew over and layed her hand on his shoulder.

"What is it, Robin?" He looked at her, and smiled, a little. He was at a loss at how to act towards her, but only for a moment. He could see in her eyes how she felt, he always could. He wrapped one hand around her hip before he answered. Also, before he answered, his smile faded.

"Look at them," he said, and moved his hand from her hip to her chin, moving her face so her gaze fell on the prisoners, "see anyone missing?" Starfire, who was a little distracted, being so close to Robin again, tried to concentrate on what Robin was seeing. She wasn't sure how he could possibly pick one face out of a crowd so big, but after a moment, began to see what he was talking about. The big guns, the alpha males, the truly dangerous inmates, all of them were not among the collected prisoners. Atlas, Brother Blood, Control Freak, Dr. Light, Killer Moth, Overload, and others, she could see none of them. By the look on her face, Robin could tell that she'd figured it out.

"We need to tell the rest of them." They moved off towards the rest of the Titans, but before they got there, a voice came booming out of the darkness.

"That was most impressive, I must commend all of you." It was coming from the roof of one of the buildings, a three storey apartment building 50 yards from where they'd assembled the prisoners. Without even looking, everyone, the Titans and the Justice League knew exactly who it was. It was Slade.

"Deathstroke," Robin heard Green Arrow say. Deathstroke? He turned to ask about it, but Slade continued before Robin could say anything.

"It seems you've missed a few of your former friends." They all melted out of the darkness behind Slade. They were all up there. Out of the bad people in Jump City, they were the worst.

"Plasmus, please, get rid of that dome, would you?" Plasmus, who stood directly to Slade's left, fired a stream of red ooze towards Green Lantern.

"Awwww...crap."

He had no choice but to disengage the shield around the inmates, and raise another in front of him, to protect him from the wave of red slime.

The riot started, all over again.

"Come on Titans, the party is just beginning." Slade spoke loud, but calmly, in the same monotone that he always used. It drove Robin absolutely nuts.

All of the villains – of which, Robin could recognize Overload, Cinderblock, Control Freak, Dr. Light, and several others – jumped off of the building and started running off in different directions.

"You'd better go kid," Green Arrow said, straining against the deluge of human beings that had sprung his way, "The Justice League have got these guys sussed!" He threw a punch and sent a prisoner flying. _Fair enough_ Robin thought. Slade and his cronies were the bigger risk anyway.

"Titans, GO!"


	6. Chapter 6

22.

They all took off running, following different roads, but before Robin and Starfire split up, she stopped him, grabbed him by the wrist and turned him to face her.

"Robin, be careful..." She looked worried. Robin was touched, but confused. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders,

"Don't worry Star, we got this." She didn't look convinced.

"There is something about this that seems...wrong. I worry for you." She leaned forward and they embraced.

"Star, I'm worried for you as well. Be careful, ok?" They stayed like that for a moment, her on her tip toes with her chin resting on his shoulder. They could feel each other's heart beat, feel the swell of each others chests as they breathed. Robin suddenly felt very little like going after Slade, but knew he had to. He pushed her away a little, but only so he could look into her eyes.

"I'll be alright, I promise." He planted a quick kiss on her cheek.

"Are you ready?" He asked her. He cupped her face in his hands, lightly brushing her cheeks with his thumbs. She smiled, and nodded.

"Alright then!" He ran and she followed, flying over his right shoulder. When the time came, they parted, each chasing a different super villain down a different street.

They didn't know it, but Slade saw the entire exchange between the two of them. There in the shadows, out of view of everyone, he smiled.

His plan was in its final phase, and soon, Robin would pay.

23.

Starfire was chasing Control Freak. She saw him off in the distance, but he wasn't really doing anything, just running away. That suited her fine, it would make his eventual capture that much easier. He also was not the fittest villain in the world, and she was quickly gaining on him.

"Go on Starfire, faster. Catch the little troll." It was a whisper, drifting to her from no certain direction. She stopped and looked around her, but there was no one. She swore it sounded like Slade, but in the whispered voice, she couldn't be sure. She shook it off and continued to fly towards Control Freak. When she looked she noticed something odd; he had stopped when she did, and waited for her to move again before continuing to run. Odd...but she ignored it. If he wanted to be caught, she would be happy to deliver him to that end. She saw him duck inside a building, and sped towards it with confidence.

Inside, it was a sorry sight. It was a completely dilapidated apartment building, that had been abandoned years ago. There was still furniture in the rooms, but it, too, was old and ready to fall apart. Starfire could smell the waft of stale air and rot. It was clear that no one had lived in this building for years...why had Control Freak come up here?

"Up here, green eyes!" He sneered at her from the top of an old set of stairs. She took off after him.

As soon as she crested the stairs and entered the room at the top, she heard a loud pop, and something struck her neck, a needle of some kind. A second later, she felt her eyelids getting heavy, and felt herself sinking. She landed – crash landed – and skidded across the floor. Whatever had hit her, it hadn't knocked her out, but it had definitely took the fight out of her. She staggered to her feet and looked around the room. There, in a dusty old arm chair, sat Slade, with his legs crossed and a smoking gun in his hand. Control Freak stood next to him.

"Thank you for your assistance, you may go, now." He looked up briefly at Control Freak, who nodded and walked calmly out of the room. He quietly passed Starfire by, throwing only the briefest of glances her way. Starfire felt half asleep, she was able to stand, think, see, but if Slade wanted a fight, she would be lacking in that department.

If the situation demanded her to fight, however, she would try.

"Hello Starfire." Slade said, standing. She wrenched the needle from her neck, and looked at it in her fist before throwing it away.

"A mild sedative. I would like very much if you stayed on the ground from now on." He looked out an open window while she fought the urge to fall to her knees.

"I suppose you are wondering why I've lured you here." He walked over to her and took up her chin in his hand. Unlike Robin, he was rough, and pinched down with his thumb, hard. She reacted to the pain by trying to throw a punch at Slade. It bounced off of his chest like a wet snowball, and he ignored it.

"You are my masterpiece." He shoved her backward and she stumbled and fell. As she picked herself up, still woozy, she spoke;

"What do you mean, masterpiece?" She tried to sound serious, mean. She was never very good at that, though. Slade walked over to her, and slapped her with the back of his hand, very, very hard.

"The culmination of all of my hard work." She was on all fours on the ground, trying to get enough strength to stand. Before she could, he brought his foot up into her ribs, and she let out a groan of pain. "Mumbo, my little performance downtown, the jailbreak. All of it, every single moment, every word said. All of it, building to this." He bent down and made fist of her shirt, lifting her up off the ground.

"What do you want with me?" She stuttered. There was a small dribble of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. He unceremoniously threw her into the wall, and she bounced off with a loud smash. She landed in a heap and didn't move.

"What I want, Starfire, is sweet revenge." He picked her up again. "You see, your little boyfriend wronged me horribly. So badly in fact, that I have deemed death to good for him." He let go of her and she slumped to the ground, unable to stand. He walked, calmly, towards the table beside the chair he was sitting in. "I have tried to break him in so many ways...I have tried turning him on his friends, and I failed. I tried turning his friend on him, and she rebelled. I tried driving him completely out of his mind, and succeeded only in giving him a new set of bruises. But you, you are may way in, aren't you?" He was fiddling with something, blocked from Starfire's view by his back. She slowly started to pull herself off the ground. There was pain in every joint, and the dart that Slade had shot into her was in full effect, casting a haze over the whole world.

"Love..." Slade continued, "...it is the all binding force, is it not? That which 'conquers all'." He turned, and in his hand was a sleek, dark gray handgun. He popped a clip into it, and continued to speak. "Of course, both you and Robin felt content to skirt the issue, and make eyes at each other for all eternity. That is why I attacked you yesterday, to drive the two of you together." He strode over and yanked her to her feet by her hair. "Tell me, did it work?" He brought the gun down, across her face, opening a gash on her cheek, and sending her sprawling on the floor. "Did you sleep with him?" He bent down over her sobbing, crumpled form, and brushed the hair out of her face. Despite the blood, he could tell she was blushing. "I thought so. How predictable." He shoved her with his foot, and she slid another few feet. "You see, that too, was part of my plan. In order to make what I am about to do mean anything, you two must be in love, completely and without restraint. I can see now, that you are." Starfire wiped the blood and tears from her eyes, and tried to speak.

"What are you going to do?"

Slade sighed a little, and went down on his haunches to address her. "Now, that is a good question." He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked so her eyes were on par with his. "I hope you realize that there is nothing personal between us. I hold no grudge with you, young one. In fact, I really must thank you." He pulled her to her feet, and shoved her backward. Her trajectory was such that she fell down the stairs that she'd moments ago flown up. With a series of crashes and bangs, her limp body went hurtling downwards. She managed to connect with about every second step, and her shoulder rammed into the wall half way to the bottom. She landed at the bottom with a lifeless thud.

The fall was nearly enough to knock her out, but through eyes that could hardly see, and a mind that was spinning endlessly, she saw Slade descend the stairs, and walk to her side.

"I must thank you for being so easy to manipulate, for falling so easily into his arms, for being there for him. And most of all..." Slade pulled the slide back on the gun. It made a horrible click as it chambered a bullet. "...I must thank you for dying here today." He lowered the gun. Starfire saw it out of the corner of her eye, and used every bit of her strength to try to pull away. There was a shooting pain in her legs, and when she tried to move them they wouldn't listen. She clawed at the ground, trying desperately away from Slade. She pulled, with all her worth, but it wasn't enough. Slade angled the gun towards her, and shot Starfire, once, in the centre of her back.

"There." He said, again kneeling over her. She was still breathing, but it was shallow and slowly coming to a halt. He methodically grabbed the communicator from her belt and turned on its emergency beacon.

"Goodbye, child."


	7. Chapter 7

24.

"You haven't a prayer, Titan!" Dr. Light sneered as he created another burst of light, temporarily blinding Robin.

"You're just lucky Raven isn't here, Light. Still having the nightmares?" Dr. Light's eyes immediately glazed over, and a sweat broke on his brow.

Yes, he still had the nightmares. The visions of the dark place deep in that girls soul. He came so close to it...it had touched him.

His vacant stare was just what Robin was looking for. He leapt into the air and kicked him square in the jaw, knocking him flying. He was out before he hit the ground. Out, it seemed, like a light.

"Ok, so that's one down..." Robin quickly whipped out his communicator and called the rest of the Titans.

"What's the situation?"

"NO HUMAN IS A MATCH FOR ATLAS!" Was the first thing that boomed over the communicator, followed by a series of metallic clangs.

"Atlas is under control, I just gotta figure out how to shut him up!" Cyborg yelled.

"I managed to stop Killer Moth, and Overload is...taking a bath." Raven said, monotonous as always.

"I found that Fang guy crawling around on a skyscraper downtown. Consider him dusted!" Beast Boy said triumphantly. Robin couldn't help but be impressed. It had taken all their combined efforts to take these guys down the first time.

"Great job guys. What about you Starfire?" He waited patiently for a moment. For some reason, a hot cramp gathered together in his gut.

"Starfire?"

A moment later her emergency beacon went off, and Robin broke into a run.

"Robin, we'll be there in a-" Robin cut Cyborg off before he could finish.

"No, you all have work to do, I'll find her." He was trying to sound like a leader should, but he couldn't hide the fear in his voice. The cramp he'd developed synched in even tighter, and he picked up his pace. His mind raced with a thousand thoughts and none of them were good. The only reason Starfire would have activated that beacon is if she were in trouble, and seconds counted. By her location, Robin figured he was close enough to be there in mere minutes, but he pushed himself to go faster. Minutes were too long, he had to be there _now._

The thought that was constantly rising to the surface was that he was too late.

25.

He was entering a run down part of town, or rather _the _run down part of town. Jump City was blessed in many ways, and one of them was its upkeep. It seemed that only this section of it – measuring no more than a few blocks – had lived in a bubble for the past twenty years, and had slowly decomposed into the empty shells of buildings, home to nothing but a few different species of insects. Starfire must have chased someone down here, it was the only explanation. According to her beacon, she was in the building third on Robin's left, the only one with its door gaping open. It was a two storey house, which Robin considered large, though having spent a large part of his life living in a mansion, and an even larger part in a circus tent, he guessed he was a poor judge of the size of a building, and put the thought out of his mind.

He was gulping down lung fulls of breath, expecting that he'd come across quite a fight when he entered the building, and he quickly made a mental list of the criminals they'd yet to wrangle. On the top of that list, of course, was Slade. He reached the door and stepped inside.

No.

He didn't see all over her, just the bottom half of her legs, and a pool of red liquid spread beside her. The rest was obscured by a wall, which looked like it led to perhaps a flight of stairs, but Robin didn't care about that.

"Starfire?" He said, with a huge shake in his voice. He felt a cold chill spread on his skin, and goose flesh rose as he took a few wobbly steps towards her.

Too late, too late, too late...

He reached her side, and dropped to his knees. She was on her stomach, her left arm was bent so her left hand was next to her head, her right arm was extended as far as it could go. A small blood trail on the floor told Robin that she was crawling away from whoever...shot her. The hole in her back was small, but it leaked blood into the pool that he'd seen upon entering. He could already tell she wasn't breathing.

When his brain shut off like it was now doing, he reverted to instinct. First, he brushed her communicator aside, which had been placed on the small of her back, as if put on display, and turned her over. When he touched the bare skin of her arm, it was deathly cold.

Too late.

He breathed a lung full of his own air into her, making a tight seal over her mouth with his. Instinct was driving him, and it told him that he was her breath until help arrived...if it ever did. He pressed his palms together and pumped them five times on her chest.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Breathe.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Breathe

Her eyes were closed. Her lips were already starting to turn a little blue. He knew he was too late, instinct be damned. He unclasped his hands, and his face curled into a silent scream.

No sound came out, but he could feel tears well up behind his mask.

He pulled her tightly to him, and rocked her gently.

"No, please...no." He said, but she didn't hear him, and he knew it. He used to know a lot, but then all he knew was her. All he knew was the hot cramp in his gut was twisting his insides hard enough to make him feel ill. Most of all, he knew that Starfire, his teammate, his friend, his lover, was dead.

He buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and started to cry.

It was all he could think of to do for a long, long time.

26.

"Is that all of them?" Batman asked Wonder Woman. She was one of the few people he was on a first name basis with, and they spoke out of range of the rest so they could use each other's names freely.

"Awwww, does Bruce still want to fight, tonight?" She asked, smiling slyly. He'd noticed the gleam in her eye for a while, and knew what it meant. He couldn't help but be interested, she was completely gorgeous, after all.

"No, I just don't want any weirdo's in orange jumpsuits to jump out at odd hours of the night, looking to start taking up some old habits." They looked at each other, and then they both smiled. "And yes, I still want to fight."

He looked over Wonder Woman's shoulder and saw that young girl he'd fought beside earlier. She was speaking to a young man with orange hair and an oversized pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses in the middle of the night. Kids. Wonder Woman followed his gaze and arched her eyebrow.

"Have a new friend I should know about?" Batman didn't like her tone, or what it implied.

"She fights well, but she's fifteen." He smiled again, but didn't look at Wonder Woman. He hoped it aggravated her, just a little bit. She elbowed him in the gut, and he doubled over. He supposed that's what she did when she got aggravated. She grabbed his shoulder and stood him up. When he managed to right himself, Wonder Woman was standing in front of him with her hand on her hips, with a somewhat...suggestive look on her face.

"Forget about her." She said, and took a step forward.

Just as Batman was about to look away from the girl...Raven? He noted that she reached into her cloak and removed a communicator. When she held it to her ear to listen to whatever was being said, she let it fall from her fingers. She looked unsteady on her feet, and was swaying, like her legs were made of jello. Soon enough, she collapsed to her knees, and was holding her head in her hands. Even at the distance he was at, Batman could see her trembling, and hear her sobbing. The boy she was speaking to went to his knees as well, and grabbed her by both shoulders to support her. She fell into him, like she was completely unable to hold herself up anymore. Batman lightly pushed Wonder Woman out of his way, and looked at her intensely.

"To be continued, Diana." He walked over to the girl, and soon found out what had happened. When he told Wonder Woman, she ceased being mad at him, in fact, she felt a little weak kneed herself.

27.

"Where do we go from here?" Raven's eyes were puffy and red, like everyone else's. They'd gathered in Titan Tower after Robin had spread the tragic news. Everything that was going on outside seemed small and insignificant, and they'd left the clean up of the city in the hands of the Justice League. It felt a little weird, since 24 hours ago, they would have absolutely insisted to be in charge of any superhero activity going on in Jump City, but now, well, now it was a day later, and the world had changed forever. No one had an answer for Raven, and they all sat, staring at the space of floor between their feet.

"Who did it? Who?" Cyborg grunted. They all knew he was talking to himself, just as much as they all knew who did it. It had to be Slade. He was the only one sadistic enough.

"Someone should call Galfore back on Tamaran. He'll know what to do with...her." Robin said. His voice was wavering, they all heard it. Outside he was trying to remain composed, but inside he was completely falling apart. None of them really knew how far the relationship between he and Starfire had gone (indeed, the events of earlier in the evening would now forever remain a secret), but they knew the two of them were close in a way that went beyond friendship. He was only pretending to hold up, and it was only a matter of time before he did something drastic.

"Yeah, Galfore should come, we don't know what they do with their..." Cyborg couldn't finish. He was going to say '_with their dead_' but just couldn't get the words past his lips.

Suddenly, Robin slammed both his fists down on the table between them all. He stood and started to leave the room.

"Robin, where are you going?" It was Cyborg. He stood and faced Robin.

"Make sure Galfore knows. I'll be back by tomorrow night."

"Where are you going?" Robin started to walk away, not even turning to face Cyborg. Cyborg made to follow him, but Raven grabbed him around the elbow and stopped him.

"Let him go, he needs time." Cyborg hesitated, but then he sat down. Raven was right, they all needed to deal with the loss in the way they felt most comfortable, and Robin always dealt with problems by himself, either that, or he talked it out with Starfire, and well...Cyborg felt a tear roll down his cheek, and returned to staring at the floor.

Wherever Robin was going, Cyborg hoped he found what he was looking for.

28.

Starfire was dead. He remembered that fact. All other facts concerning the last few hours he put out of his mind, and as the sun started to rise, he found himself back at that house, in the rundown part of town.

The JLA had asked the police to stay out of the investigation, and the Titans agreed to stay home and grieve. They wanted to keep it within their jurisdiction, make sure that they brought whoever was responsible to justice. Such was the way when a hero died, it was up to the other hero's to find and prosecute the killer.

When Robin got to the scene, Batman was there, which didn't especially surprise him. When dealing with a murder investigation, who better to have on the case than the greatest detective in the world?

He was collecting samples of something and sticking them into a hand held reader. It was one of his utility belt toys, and Robin knew immediately that it was for identifying trace samples of unknown substances. He fed in tube after tube, identifying every little thing he found on the ground. Robin knew that he knew exactly what went on, and had probably already figured the location of the guilty party's hideaway.

"Where is Slade?" Batman's head twitched, but he didn't turn around or get up.

"Who?"

"The man that did this, where is he?"

"I don't like that tone in your voice, Robin. You aren't planning what I think you are, are you?" He didn't have to turn around to see the look on Robin's face, he knew what was there. There was anger, rage even. There was the need to kill. He knew this, because he'd felt it before, worn that expression before, more times than he'd care to think about.

"What do you care what I plan to do?" Robin hadn't moved from the threshold of the disintegrating door. A small wind blew through and swirled his cape around him.

"Because if this 'Slade' is the one who killed the girl, then I know what you want to do to him. You want to kill him. I've taught you better than that, so don't even think about it." Batman slid another tube into the machine and it beeped, displaying something on its readout, Robin took a few steps and looked over Batman's shoulder, and read the screen.

Silica.

He'd fed in a sample of silica dust, which was a kind of quartz, it was the stuff they made glass out of.

"Whoever was in here had silica on their feet. Do you know how hard it is to get silica dust on your feet?" Batman asked, briefly turning his head to look at Robin over his shoulder. Robin did. It was not common to see it in its unprocessed form, and one of the only places to get it would be from a mine. There were a few mines in the area surrounding Jump City. One of them, if Robin remembered, was a silica mine. It was weak, but Robin felt that it might be enough. He turned to leave.

"Don't you care what else I've found?"

"Does it matter? He's at the mine, right?" Robin didn't turn around, but stopped walking.

"It might." Batman stood effortlessly, and turned to face Robin. "And yes, he is." Batman turned around and started to survey the scene as he spoke.

"This 'Slade', he's not your average criminal. I guess you already know that, but I know why." This perked Robin's interest. He didn't say anything, but he also didn't leave, which Batman took as a good sign.

"Turns out he managed to cut himself, this is his blood, here." Batman pointed at the smallest of splotches on the ground. Robin turned around. He saw the sickening, huge puddle of blood, Starfire's blood, and the void which her body had created in the pool (what they did with her body, Robin wasn't sure, he couldn't bare to ask), and all of the streaks and hand prints that marked her last struggle. It made him absolutely seize up to see it, his legs locked and he couldn't move. He managed to notice the small spot of blood that Batman was pointing to. It was minute, but for the Batman, it was plenty. Robin thought that perhaps Slade had been cut by some moving mechanism from the gun when he fired it, but how the blood got there didn't really matter.

"This mans DNA, its been altered, and whoever did it knew what they were doing." Robin snapped back to reality, and stopped staring at the blood pool.

"Altered? Meaning what? He's not human?"

"Meaning he's not normal, in which way, I can't tell from a blood sample. If you're going to confront him, I'd be careful."

"Don't worry, I always am." That was a lie, Robin was far from careful when he took on Slade, and this time he would not only be distracted, he was so enraged that Batman wasn't sure what he'd do. Robin turned towards the door.

"Robin, one more thing," Batman said, "I'm coming with you."


	8. Chapter 8

29.

"So why did the JLA think Slade's name was Deathstroke?" Robin asked. When he spoke it was absently, really all he was doing was trying to put Starfire out of his mind. He was failing, but he was trying nonetheless.

"He's been a thorn in our side as well. When he showed up, he called himself Deathstroke, and he wasn't interested in destruction or world domination." They were walking side by side, towards the mine. They'd taken the Batmobile for most of the way, which had been a ride the Robin thought he'd been looking forward to. For all the neat things he got to do with the Titans, nothing beat riding around in a rocket powered car. It, however, had been less than memorable, Robin had spent most of the time gazing mindlessly out the window, watching the city fly by. Batman let him be, never saying a word. He knew how it felt, losing someone you loved, and the only thing that helped was time.

"So why were you guys after him if he wasn't threatening the world?" Robin asked.

"He was an international assassin, codename 'Deathstroke'. He'd racked up an impressive record, that's why we had to take him down."

"So how did he end up in Jump City?"

"Good question. He disappeared from sight some time ago. We thought he'd either retired or been caught...or killed. It seems he wasn't. Now he uses his real name, and he's got a serious grudge against the world."

"Against me..." Robin muttered.

"Yes, that too."

They crested a hill, and were met with what looked like a rock quarry, a massive open pit. That was about right, Robin thought, since Silica was mined in open pits. It was spectacularly unremarkable, though, just a huge hole in the ground.

"Stay sharp." Batman said. He obviously saw something that Robin didn't, which didn't really surprise him, Batman was always figuring things out a half step faster than Robin. That half step passed by very quickly, though.

"So glad you could show up, my boy. And you've brought your mentor along as well, how very quaint." They heard his voice perfectly, but they couldn't see him anywhere. Suddenly, an army of Slade robots began to pour from the pit in front of them.

"Aw...hell." Robin mumbled, taking a fighting stance. It was a useless endeavour, there was no way the two of them could take that amount of robots.

"Titans, GO!" Cyborg yelled out from behind Robin. Raven flew over his head, and raised a chunk of rock that landed within the swarm and crushed at least twenty of them.

"You didn't think we'd let you take on Slade alone, did you?" Cyborg said when he reached Robins side. He powered his arm cannon and fired, mowing down a few more of the Slade Robots.

"But how did you find me?" The question was self answering, Robin instantly felt the weight of the communicator in his pocket and knew exactly how they'd found him.

"Real easy when you're wearing a locator beacon," Cyborg said, "but I think we can talk later, right now, there's butt to kick!" He ran off and threw a punch that took the head off of the nearest robot. Robin started in on the fight as well, jumping and punching and kicking, letting out a little of the vast stores of rage he had inside. Raven noted, as she flew over the fight, that Robin and Batman looked so similar in the middle of a battle. The fluidity of movement, the style, the grace. Robin was definitely Batman's student, that much was clear. She levitated a group of robots and crunched the together until there was nothing but a large ball of spare parts. Time for contemplation later, now it was time to fight.

Beast Boy had been absolutely tearing through the mob of robots, turning into all manner of evil creature, he was currently in the form of a giant Raptor, ripping with tooth and claw through the deluge of robots. He didn't tell anyone, but Starfire's death had hit him impossibly hard. Everyone seemed to be dealing with it in a way, almost like they were shocked and it had yet to sink in. Beast Boy didn't feel that way, he felt vile inside, like a large part of him had been forcibly removed. Robin was certain to be hit hard after the fighting was over, after Slade was behind bars and all Robin had was himself, he'd fall apart, and Beast Boy knew it. He knew it because he himself had been falling apart since he heard the news, this fight was doing nothing to heal the pain inside him, and that just made him fight harder, and faster. In short, whatever switch the others had flipped to dedicate themselves wholly to the fighting, Beast Boy didn't have, and it was eating him away inside.

Robin bumped into someone, and quickly wheeled around to see who was next on the block. When he saw it was Batman, he dropped his dukes for a moment, and took a second to catch his breath. There was fighting going on all around them, but none of the robots were attacking the two of them for the moment.

"You shouldn't be here," Batman said, without facing Robin, "you have a job to do."

"I know...Slade." Robin's mouth furled into a growl and he turned quickly and landed a punch on the jaw of an oncoming robot.

"Go, Robin, we can take care of this."

"Go? But where is he?" Robin took a look around him to see if he was missing anything.

"There's only one place he can be, over there." Batman pointed to the other side of the pit. There was a mound of dirt obscuring a fair amount of land. Robin wasn't sure how Batman knew that Slade was over there, but for some reason, he knew that Batman was right. Batman was always right. Robin started to clear a path through the robots, and turned towards his team, who were still fighting behind him.

"Go get him, Robin, we have your back!" Raven yelled.

"Go, Robin, now!" Cyborg took out a few more robots, and pointed at the pile of dirt.

"Go...please, stop Slade." Beast Boy's voice cracked as he spoke, Robin could see the tears sparkling in his eyes. Robin felt his pain, but couldn't express it. Not until after the fighting. Not until later. He nodded and ran off, fighting through the crowd towards Slade, and what Robin feared might be their final battle. Robin feared that he just might kill Slade tonight, and the thought scared him.

30.

The pile of dirt was obviously what they'd displaced to create the open mine, and measured at least 30 metres into the air. That wasn't near enough to fill the hole which was now behind Robin, and he assumed that they'd trucked away the lion's share of it, with this pile to follow in due time.

What he found when he got to the other side of it was what must have been the business side of the mine. There was a lot of heavy equipment, stretching skyward were huge excavators and odd conveyor belts. Armies of dump trucks were lined up, and all throughout were small trailers and temporary office space. Not amongst this lot, however, was Slade. Robin trod carefully and looked all around him, but saw nothing. If Slade was there, he was not making himself very well known.

There was a myriad of footprints spreading through the layer of dust that covered the ground. Clearly the mine was still in active use, Robin could see the heavy boots prints of the miners layed as far as he could see.

Slade's footprints were lost in a maze, one that Robin was in no condition to figure out, so he kept moving.

"I knew you would come. You just couldn't stay away, could you?" It was Slade's voice, and upon hearing it every muscle in Robin's body tensed. He wanted to run, but from the sound and direction of it, he knew it was coming from the mining companies PA system, and so had nowhere to run to. Knowing Slade, he could be tapping into it from anywhere.

"I really do question your motives, do you not have a lover to bury? Tell me, does it hurt?"

"Just tell me where you are Slade, and I'll show you how much it hurts!" Robin had his hands balled into fists so tight the material of his gloves groaned from the strain. His teeth were clenched so tightly his jaw ached. The pain was far away, though, right up front was a burning red rage, directed straight at Slade.

"I would hate to give away the answer since you've come this far on your own. Aren't you supposed to be the protege of the worlds greatest detective? And here you are asking for directions? HA!" His laughter rang out all around him, resonating like a fun house soundtrack. Robin looked around frantically for some clue. He had to focus, had to clear his head. '_Emotions are the enemy_'That's what Batman always said, and it was true to a certain degree. Despite the need to feel the anger and hurt, he pushed it all down, and tried to concentrate.

What did he know? He knew that Slade could not simply be _anywhere, _he had to be somewhere close, where he could tap into the PA system he was speaking through. The PA system itself looked fairly primitive, a series of loud speakers grafted to tall wooden posts, a collection of wires snaking between them connected them all together. So, if Slade wanted to talk through it, he had to have a hard line connection to it somewhere. Robin started to trace the path of the wires as they criss crossed over his head. They all looked frayed and old, probably from age, but otherwise intact, except for one section. It was far in the distance and hard to see, but it looked liked one wire hung, snapped into two pieces. One end hung limply from a pole, while the other was pulled taught, and disappeared behind another mound of dirt.

There he is.

Robin broke into a run, towards the severed wire, where Slade had clearly tapped into the system. All that rage he'd moments ago suppressed quickly bubbled back to the surface, and Robin knew then he could never be like Batman. Batman could keep those emotions festering for years, where he could only keep them at bay long enough to do the bare minimum of mental work, then they came rushing back. He supposed that he should be thankful for that. He intended to feel the brunt of Starfire's death, feel it and deal with it.

As he ran, he felt the tears build up behind his mask again. That, he could ignore.


	9. Chapter 9

31.

While Robin searched for Slade and a retribution he'd yet to decide upon, the rest of the Titan's, along with The Batman himself, were at war. The Slade Robot army was almost never-ending, pouring out of the open pit, and soon out of the trees around them. They all, at around the same time, wondered how Slade got so many damn robots, who funded such a thing? They seemed to be coming apart easy enough, though, and so the fighting continued.

"These guys aren't letting up!" Beast Boy yelled over the hacking and tinging noises of flesh on metal.

"Then neither will we," Batman replied. He spoke with a calm that sent a shake up Beast Boy's spine. His pulse probably never went above 80 reps a minute, even if he were being electrocuted or thrown off a building.

Raven flew over the fighting, and instead of throwing punches, she was throwing robots into each other, while stacking the broken ones in front of the pit, making it harder for new robots to enter the fray. She never told anyone when her emotions were out of control, but the Titans always knew, and right now her anger, her rage, her every emotion she'd fought to control for so long were flying completely off the hilt, the needle long ago buried in the red. She could feel her face contorting into a twisted parody of her father, four eyes and fangs, and a murderous attitude to match. She dared not risk being attacked or hit by any of the robots, she was sure it would push her completely over the edge.

She'd left the tower with the rest of the team, and she was dealing, she was calm. They followed Robin's locator to some weird mine, and she was still in control, still calm. She started fighting, and yes, she was still in control. It took so much to sway her, but the last straw was always the nagging rub of her train of thought. While she flew, her mind wandered, while she scrapped robots, she reflected. Her body battled in one place, and her mind battled in another, and her control started to waiver. Finally, her minds eye happened upon a gravestone, with big, carved letters spelling her name, and her control slipped away even more.

She figured that Starfire's funeral (which regardless of Tamaranian death rights, she knew they were going to have _some _sort of service celebrating her life here on earth) would be nearly impossible to get through without falling into the depths of sorrow, and so help her, she wouldn't destroy herself here. She would corral her emotions, she would be calm, she would get back control. She would not think about Starfire, her broken body laying at the bottom of a flight of stairs... _Starfire...death...Starfire is dead._

_Starfire is dead!_

It was then that Raven boiled over.

32.

It started as a wind, small at first, just enough to kick the stray papers around them a few feet into the air. It didn't feel right, though. It felt unnatural, like a hot breath on the back of your neck. Cyborg knew almost immediately what it was, he'd felt it a couple of times before. He looked up into the air, and saw the black streak rocketing through the air, slowly being surrounded by a blood red aura.

"No, Raven. Stop!" He yelled but it was too late, and he knew it. "Everyone hold on to something!" He ran frantically searched for something to anchor himself to, as the wind quickly rose in intensity. He felt himself being blown towards something, and looked up to see the robots being sucked up off the ground and sent flying into a giant black vortex. His feet were sliding along, and the more he dug into the ground, the harder the wind blew, the harder the vortex drew him to it. As his feet left the ground, a line shot around his waist, and pulled tight and held against the forces working against him. The line had come from Batman, who was holding onto another line, which was wrapped tightly around a tree twenty yards away.

"What is going on!" He yelled over the howling winds.

"Raven!" Cyborg yelled back, pointing towards the screaming vortex. He scanned the area for Beast Boy. He saw a green snake wrapped around a pole which held up a collection of electrical wiring, and hoped that was him. The green was the right shade, but every time Beast Boy changed shape, Cyborg had a creepy premonition that they would confuse some weird breed of green animal for him. It had certainly happened at least once in the past.

The wind, the sucking, spiralling vortex, continued for far too long. All of Slade's Robots – save for the ones that had managed to grab a hold of something – were being sucked into the nothingness, offering no screams or sounds of protest. Soon enough the bulk of them were gone, only a few clinging to whatever they could find. The high winds and the black vortex continued long past that, though. It lasted until Raven's anger was completely spent, leaving her a crumpled mass on the ground, at the bottom of the open pit. When it finished, Cyborg crashed to the ground with a resonating thud. As he lifted his head, he saw that green snake slithering towards Raven's lifeless form. He stood, as the snake turned back into Beast Boy.

"Raven!" Beast Boy kneeled beside her, and found her not unconscious, but crying. She was face down with her head in the dirt, shaking and sobbing to herself. Beast Boy put his hand on her back, and felt himself start to break down too. With the fight so emphatically over, there was nothing but reality left to deal with, and right then reality sucked. When Cyborg joined them, he was already in a similar state, and they all left Batman to clean up the few stragglers left that had avoided the fate of their robot brethren.

Batman handled them easily, but when the fighting stopped, so did he. He was never good at comforting people through the death of a friend, so he left the remaining Titans to grieve. He stood, crossed his arms and waited for Robin to return, hoping that when he did, he was leading Slade in a pair of handcuffs, not dragging his dead body by a pant leg.

32.

"Slade! Where are you!" Robin had reached the end of the wire, where he hoped to find Slade, crouched over and speaking into some cheap set up. In his delerious rage he wasn't thinking straight, as soon as he saw the transmitter – one that allowed for a wireless connection to the ancient PA system – he knew he'd walked right into a trap. Slade had planted a solid punch on the back of his head before his mind could catch up to his reality. He went sailing through the air and crashed to the ground.

"Hmmm, I must have shook you very badly, I had little hope that my trap would work. Robin, tell me, how's the little lady?" His tone suggested he was taking perverse pleasure in his torturous words. Robin knew that Slade wanted him to hear those words, as well. With the kind of opportunity Slade just had, he could have killed Robin. Instead, he just knocked him over, prone and in perfect listening position.

Robin saw red. He saw death in Slade's eye. He felt fire inside him, and knew that the only way for release was to go through Slade to get it. He got up and charged toward him. Slade easily avoided the obvious, slow moving attack and knocked Robin back onto the ground.

"Harder, attack me harder. Show me a real fight, it will make your death all the more glorious." He stood back and let Robin pull himself to his feet, which he did much faster than he had the last time. Robin was going back to instinct. Before it had told him to try to save Starfire's life, and now, since that had failed, now it was telling him that Slade had to die, and die now. He lunged and struck Slade on the chin. It was a glancing blow, and Slade moved with it, causing little damage. The two squared off.

"Why are you doing this to me! What have I done to you! What have any of us done to you!"

"You should know by now that I don't give answers freely, my boy. In this world, you must find your own answers." His monotone drove Robin to action, and so he lunged again, starting a flurry of attacks. Slade dodged or blocked most of them, and waited patiently for Robin to finish. After a time, he got fed up, and muscled Robin away.

"Enough!"

Robin stood slowly, surprised by the outburst, but even more surprised by the rise in Slade's voice.

"Since you are clearly to stupid to ever figure it out, I will tell you." As soon as he finished talking, he lashed out and pounded a stiff right hook into Robin's jaw, he went sprawling onto the ground.

"Tell me, 'Boy Wonder', do you remember a fight with a man named 'The Ravager'?" Robin rubbed a small trickle of blood away from his lips, and thought about that. Yes, he did.

It was shortly after he formed the Titans. They got a report that a high ranking assassin had been dispatched to Jump City to take them all out (to this day they hadn't figured out who sent the assassin, but Robin thought many times that it might have been Slade. Now he was suspecting that it wasn't Slade at all). The assassin, a large mask wearing man who called himself 'The Ravager' had failed in his mission. Actually, he had died mid-battle of what looked like a stroke. Cyborg had him in a rather painful joint lock, and Robin was laying in pretty hard with the punches, and suddenly Ravager's free hand went to his temple, then there was blood coming from his ears. He started screaming in unimaginable pain, and then he went dead weight in Cyborgs arms. Cyborg dropped him, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Robin remembered, because the whole affair had disturbed him greatly. Being trained by The Batman had taught him one thing above all else: take no life. Batman was strict as hell about that one. You can kick their ass, beat them down, be violent and be merciless, but never take a life. He hadn't killed The Ravager, but The Ravager didn't live, and so it stuck in his memory like a splinter. When they got the medical report, the doctors had said that Ravager had a complete metabolic meltdown, almost like his brain had detached from the rest of his body, and then turned to mush. Odd, Robin thought. Odd, but it still didn't change the feelings of regret he had.

"Yeah, I remember. He was an assassin sent to kill us." Robin held his hands in defence, but the tone of his voice had lowered to nearly a conversation level.

"Yes, and you killed him in turn!" Now it was Slade's turn to lash out, only he did it so fast that Robin couldn't react in time. Slade landed a very hard punch that sent Robin to the ground again, and this time he didn't get up so quickly. Slade's next words were yelled with more anger than Robin had ever heard in his voice.

"The Ravager's real name was Grant Wilson! He was...he..." Robin's eyes went wide; Slade's voice had actually cracked, like he was on the verge of tears. "He was my son."

Slade kicked Robin in the ribs and sent him sprawling. "You killed my son!" He aimed another kick at Robin, but Robin moved, and was on his feet in time to feel a brisk rain begin to fall. The would be sunrise had been covered over by clouds, and Robin only now noticed them. The rain they spilled was heavy, large drops rained down around turning the dusty ground under them into a muddy mess.

"You killed my son, so I killed your lover. Now, I'll kill you!" He levelled his finger at Robin, and his one eye had a look of death. He rushed at Robin and grabbed him around the waist, and started to squeeze.

"You know, Robin," he said, with his mouth only inches from Robin's ear. "I really must tell you something. You see, you really don't have a chance against me." He threw Robin down, and walked over and picked him up by the throat. "Our fine government has seen fit to alter my body," he squeezed harder. "Strength, agility, intelligence, they called me a super soldier. Do you know what they call me now?" He slammed Robin to the ground.

"Hgch...huh...huh...Death...Deathstroke!" Slade laughed, long and hard, with more than an ounce of madness mixed in.

"No, no, no. That was my codename. When I was a professional killer, my name was Deathstroke, but after I killed my fiftieth target in a row, they called me..." He balled his fist into the front of Robins shirt and picked him up off the ground, "...Terminator."

33.


	10. Chapter 10

33.

Slade, or Deathstroke, or Deathstroke the Terminator, or whoever he really was, had Robin by the scruff of the shirt, and quickly punched him hard on the chin.

"There's something I need to tell you, too, Slade," Robin said through clenched teeth, struggling against Slade's grip.

"Oh really, boy..." Slade drew him close, so their faces were inches apart, "...and what is that?"

"Just a second ago, when you were telling me about being an assassin, I did a very bad thing." Slade's one eye wavered for a moment, before regaining its composure.

"What would that be, Boy Wonder?"

"I put a bomb in your belt." Slade looked down, in time to see the small metallic object wedged next to his hip.

"...Clever."

POW!

It went off, sending Robin flying out of Slade's grasp. It was low yield, certainly not enough to kill Slade, but enough to burn him, maybe hurt him real bad. Robin wasn't sure how much armour Slade was wearing, but it was probably enough to get him through more than that.

Robin stood, and assumed a fighting stance.

Slade was slow to get up, and when he did, it was with a hand clamped to his side. Robin could see dribble's of blood coming from between Slade's fingers, and knew that his little explosive had taken a good bite out of Slade's flesh.

"That was good, Robin, very good," Slade sounded as if her were on the verge of coughing up a lung. "But do you think it will stop me?" He broke into a run, lunging at the boy.

"No, I didn't think that," Robin said, dodging the attack. His voice was cool, and it was then that anyone around him would have known that, yes, he was indeed's The Batman's protege. His voice came out of his head like he'd spent the past eight hours relaxing in front of the television, not fighting for his life. "What I thought was that there was no way I could beat you, not unless I gave you a weakness." Robin ducked a punch, and brought his fist into Slade's side, right where his fingers were covering what must have been a horrible wound. Slade screamed in pain as white hot lightning coursed through his body. "What I needed," Robin continued, adding a powerful kick to the same spot, "was an advantage. Now I have it!" Slade was on his knees, gasping for air. Robin cocked his fist and drove it into Slade's face. His fist connected with Slade's thick metal mask, broke it into pieces, and then went right on going into Slade's nose. The loud, sharp pop told both of them that the nose was broken.

Slade yelled in pain again. He could not believe what was happening. He didn't think for one second that he could be bested by this boy, but that was exactly what was happening. He wrenched the remains of his mask from around his head, and let the blood drain from his nose for a moment.

"You...you...killed my son!" He screamed without looking up.

"Your son died, but I didn't do it! Something went wrong with his body, it wasn't me or any of the Titans!"

"AHHHHH!" Slade moved too fast for Robin, he landed another punch and sent Robin to the ground. Painfully, Slade stood.

Lightning lashed across the sky, illuminating the area and for the first time Robin saw Slade's face. White hair, and a patch over his right eye, with a white goatee on his chin. He looked like a grizzled Army Captain.

"I don't care how it happened, he was in battle with you when it did. His mission was to kill the Titans, now I intend to finish that contract. I've killed one, now I will kill you, too!" Rain continued to pour, covering them both in water and mud. It was in this mud that Slade's next step slid out from under him, giving Robin the chance he needed. He planted his arm on Slade's shoulder and vaulted over him. When he landed, Slade turned just in time to eat another kick, square into his broken nose.

"You killed Starfire, for that, Slade, you'll pay!" Robin moved quickly, delivering blow after blow, focussing on the face and his wounded right side. Slade was no longer capable of avoiding the attacks, and was getting pummelled. Robin didn't care how bad he hurt Slade at that point, the one thing that kept running through his head was _'comatose is still alive, people in wheelchairs are alive. The blind, the deaf, they're all very much alive. Slade deserves worse than them, I WILL GIVE IT TO HIM NOW!'_

"You can't kill me, boy, I know what pitiful vows you have taken," Slade said through the pain and the punches.

"Don't worry, you'll live, I intend to see you behind bars, Slade." Robin said. It was true, he _intended_ to see just that. Of course, what he _wanted_ to see was Slade's head on a pike, and a gravestone which said '_Here lies Slade, murdering Bastard, loathed by all_'.

He threw a few more punches, and Slade finally recovered, he caught Robin's arm and drove his fist into Robin's elbow, forcing it in the completely wrong direction. There was a dry snap and Robin cried out. He knew immediately that the arm was broken.

"That was one bone, boy. Only a couple of hundred to go." Slade smiled maniacally. The pain going through Robin's arm was nothing short of apocalyptic, and not only that but the arm was now totally useless. It hung limply at his side, throbbing like a heartbeat.

It was then Robin made his mind up to end this fight, and do so the only way he could see to end it. He saw Slade charging out of the corner of his eye, and removed a boomerang from his belt.

"Say hello to your girlfriend for —"

His next words were stopped as Robin drove the point of his boomerang into Slade's chest, right side. Robin thought he might be puncturing a lung, and when it burst out of Slade's back, he thought maybe he might have paralysed him. He didn't much care, though. Slade slumped over Robin, supported only by the boy, and the boomerang lodged in him.

"You...said you wouldn't...kill...me..." Robin wrenched the boomerang around, Slade's good eye opened wide, in surprise and pain. There were a couple of little snaps, and a river of blood ran over Robin's hand.

"You're not dead yet, Slade." Robin let go of the boomerang, and Slade crumpled to the ground. Robin walked away, rain still pounding, his arm in a world of hurt, and never once did he turn back to see his handiwork. That chapter was now closed, and he was fearing the next one more than anything he'd ever feared in his life.

34.

The Titans had gathered in a little group, and looked like they were huddling for warmth. Batman knew better though, they were leaning on each other like that because they weren't sure if they could stand on their own. Batman had seen it before, grief, if nothing else, made one weak in the knees for days. He was more than willing to leave them to their grief, too (he was certainly _not _an authority on that subject), but he was waiting for Robin to come back. Whn the rain began, the Titans all moved under a small wooden shelter, which must have served some function to the mine, but Batman couldn't decide what. He just stood there, in the pelting rain, waiting, like a monolith.

Then he saw Robin round the dirt pile, and walk around the mine. He was holding his arm, and judging by its mobility, it was broken. Batman walked over to him.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine." Robin said without up or stopping.

"Where's Slade?"

"He's still back there. I think he needs an ambulance." Batman stopped walking, but Robin didn't. Robin kept walking until he was out of sight, and only then did Batman put a call in to the Justice League, who transported Slade up to the League's Orbiting satellite, where they had the right facilities for dealing with near dead asshole's. Batman could tell by the way Robin walked, how he looked, that he didn't care if Slade lived or died, but had shown great restraint in not killing him.

_There's hope for that boy yet_, he thought.

35.

That night, Robin kept right on walking until he got tired of his arm hurting, and sought medical attention. That allowed the Titans to catch up to him at the hospital, where they all intended to stay just long enough for Robin to be dealt with, then go home to the Tower, and not come out for a very long time.

"Did you kill him?" Raven asked, as a man named Doctor Robinson layed strips of plaster cast on Robin's arm.

"No," Robin replied, without looking up.

"...pity."

The team were milling around a sterile hospital room, as Robin was seen to, the doctor could tell they were all restless, like they wanted to jump out of their own skin. The way the one in the cloak had her arms wrapped loosely around herself, the doc could tell she was suffering behind that emotionless face.

"Well, there you go, my boy. You need to keep this cast on for at least six weeks."

"I'll make it two," Raven said, turning around but not bearing any feeling on her face. Somehow, the doctor believed her.

"Let's go guys, we're done here." Robin got up off the poorly padded examining table he'd been sitting on. The doctor wanted to say something to the group, who looked like they were about to go on a three year tour in Vietnam, not to their oddly shaped home. He wanted to say _something_ but there was nothing to say. If there was anyone who was familiar with the look of grief, it was him, he'd been responsible for so many people having that look, the slackening of all the muscles in the face, the red rimmed eyes, the little shakes now and then, it was all there. He decided to let them go, there was simply nothing he could do.

They walked solemnly back to Cyborg's car, all of them with their head down, and similar thoughts zipping through each one of them. Where do you go to pick up the pieces of a shattered life? What do you say to make the hurt go away? Is there a way to forget? No, they thought, they would never forget.

"So what do we do now?" Raven said. Though many would have said it was impossible, she actually sounded more depressing than usual.

"Do we keep going?" Cyborg asked.

"What, you mean quit? Disband the Titans?" Beast Boy asked, his voice raising in what must have been protest.

"No, we can't do that. Starfire would not have wanted that." Robin said. There was conviction in his voice, but no emotion.

"So what do we do, then?" Raven asked again. She knew that no one had an answer for her, she didn't have one herself, but she needed to ask, needed to find out. Really, she needed another distraction.

"We go home, and we mourn." Robin said simply.

It seemed like the only thing they could do. The only thing any of them wanted to do. It was the first time they could ever remember winning the good fight, and not feeling good about it. Instead of euphoria, there was only an empty feeling, a hopelessness, and most of all, pain. Pain for their loss, and pain for what they were now forced to endure. Robin looked out of the window with his head propped up on one hand, Raven sat with her hands in her lap, contemplating the floor beneath her feet. Beast Boy didn't know what to do, for the first time in a long time he felt uncomfortable in simply being. Every breath he drew in was harder to push back out. As he felt a tear loose from his eye and trickle down his cheek, he happened a glance at Raven (he could only see the back of her head and her shoulders from where he sat), and that hollow feeling got heavier, and bigger, and so hard to bear. He leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder.

"We'll never forget her, never." He said, it was all he could think of to say. They would _never_ forget Starfire, and the sacrifices she made. Raven covered his hand with hers and gave it a little squeeze.

"I know...I know." She turned to look over her shoulder at Beast Boy, and gave him the best smile she could muster, which wasn't much.

And on they went. Awkward, uncomfortable, hurting like they'd never hurt before. Robin had made his mind up on something that had been bugging him for years. Life, what was it? His life seemed to travel in cycles, and just when he feels content, happy, something horrible happens. His parents died when he was a young acrobat, felled by a cut wire on a trapeze rigging. If it held a few moments more, he would have been killed as well, but he lived, thus ending that cycle of his life. Then he met Bruce Wayne, Batman, who told him he could direct the rage, the anger of death towards something good. He was young enough to believe that, and it was true to a degree, so Dick Grayson agreed to be Dick no more, and become Robin, and a new cycle began. They – Batman and Robin – had run together for a few years and then had a falling out, a spectacular, expletive ridden falling out, involving him being ousted from the Batcave and essentially fired, and so a cycle ended. Then, he met Starfire and formed the Teen Titans, cycle begins. And now, Starfire is dead, cycle over. Always in a circle, love, death, love, death. That's all life is, really, an endless cycle of Love and Death, forever spiralling towards that last death in the chain, yours. Robin knew then, that a new cycle was beginning, he just didn't know how to handle it. He felt the tears behind his mask again, and this time he let them come, there was no reason to hold them back any longer.

Epilogue

Bartholomew Allen AKA Kid Flash

Powers include running at super sonic speed and a photographic memory, allowing him to read and remember any book in a matter of seconds. Currently resides in Keystone City with Wally West.

Conner Kent AKA Superboy

Genetic clone of Superman, with similar powers. Currently resides in Smallville with John and Martha Kent.

Mia Deardon AKA Speedy

Green Arrow's newest sidekick. Top notch archer and above average athletic, gymnastic and martial arts abilities. Currently resides in Star City with millionaire Oliver Queen.

Cassandra Sandsmark AKA Wonder Girl

Granted super powers by The God Zeus. Super strength, super speed, and the ability to fly. Currently resides in Gateway City with her mother.

Cyborg leafed through the folders one at a time, still considering the whole exercise a rather grim activity. Starfire had only been dead a month, and already they were trying to replace her. Somehow, it felt wrong. They'd had countless conversations on the subject, yes they were going to continue being the Teen Titans, yes they needed someone to fill Starfire's slot (yes, they contacted the JLA for a few suggestions, and got ten boxes of potential candidates), but it was like they were hardly acknowledging her anymore. It had been at least three days since anyone had mentioned her, and though that must have been a step in the right direction for grieving, it still felt wrong.

"You think Robin is gonna want to look at these?" Raven said, motioning towards the table and the piles of folders.

"He said he trusted our judgement. Besides, he's probably still packing." Raven shrugged and started to leaf through a new folder. Cyborg noted that she still hadn't regained that...whatever she had before Starfire's death. Raven was always a little depressing, but it was never really as infectious as it had been the past few weeks. Oh well, he could certainly relate.

A few minutes later Robin walked in. He was wearing civilian clothes for the first time in forever, and didn't have his mask on. They all stood, the bag in his hand told them that he was ready to leave. Cyborg walked to him.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"So...when you comin' back?" Robin looked around the room, and seemed to be really thinking about the answer this time. The last time Cyborg had asked him that, he shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room.

"Let me put it this way, you only need to pick one of those names, not two." He motioned towards the gargantuan pile of folders, each representing another hero. "You narrow it down at all?"

"Yeah, we got it down to four, most of them are too old to be Titans. You gotta hand to the Justice League, when you say you're looking for a new member, they give you the Phone book." They looked at each other for a moment, then Cyborg extended his hand towards Robin. Robin smiled a little and took it, shaking it (or rather _being shook_. Cyborg is what Jerry Seinfeld would call the shaker of a hand shake).

"Don't stay away too long, you hear me?"

"Count on that," Robin said. He looked over Cyborgs shoulder and saw Raven and Beast Boy standing there, looking at him. He let go of Cyborgs hand an walked past him, patting his shoulder on the way by. Cyborg watched Robin walk towards them and say something, but couldn't hear what. He dropped his bag and hugged Raven, who received it quite well, especially for Raven. She got up on her tip toes, wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her chin on Robin's shoulder, her eyes were closed. They separated and Robin turned to Beast Boy, offering his hand. Beast Boy took it, and they drew each other into a tight embrace which lasted a few seconds. When they parted, Robin turned, picked up his bag and walked away, never looking back.

"See ya," he said as he walked by Cyborg.

"Yeah...see ya." Cyborg wondered then when he would next see Robin. They all agreed that if he wanted to leave, he could, Cyborg would fill in as leader. But they all agreed that he had to come back, Starfire wouldn't want him to stop, not like that. Where he was going or how long he was going to stay there, he wouldn't say.

He kept on walking, and never once turned back for another look. Leaving his team, minus two for now, soon to be minus one.

Back on the mainland, off of Titans Tower Island, a huge black car waited, idling on the side of the road. When Robin neared, a past middle aged man with a highly manicured, small mustache and a chauffer's hat exited the drivers side door, and walked around the car to where Robin was.

"Hello, master Dick." He spoke in a rather sophisticated British accent, and smiled warmly.

"Hey Alfred, how was the ride down?" Alfred looked briefly through the tinted window at something, then turned back.

"Quiet."

He opened the passenger door, exposing the darkened, cavernous interior. There was a figure inside, sitting in the shadows.

"Hi, Bruce." Robin said. The figure didn't move, or even say anything right away. Robin climbed in and sat opposite the figure, which was billionaire business man and alter ego of the Batman, Bruce Wayne.

"Hello Dick." He said. With no further words shared between them, the car started to move.

After a time, Bruce leaned forward and addressed Robin, Dick.

"If there's anything you need...anything, just let me know."

"Yeah...thanks." Dick said. Another few moments went by.

"Bruce..." he said, quietly.

"Yes?"

"How do you do it?" Dick leaned forward.

"Do what?"

"Deal with death. Right now I feel like there's a part of me that wants to jump off this whole planet, leave the bad behind, you know?"

"Yes, I know." Bruce leaned he head out of the shadows, and addressed Dick with a look in his eyes, which was somewhere between compassion and extremely grave.

"Dick, I was only eight when my parents died, not much younger than you when yours died, but I chose not to deal with it like you did. I'll bet how you felt then and how you feel now is quite similar, yes?"

"I suppose. But when they died I had this life to turn to...now where do I turn?"

"You don't. Don't shy away from death, Dick. I did. When my parents died I shut down most of the emotions I had, I've never really turned them back on, just hid behind a mask and took my anger out on the scum of the earth. Don't do that, don't hide behind that mask, don't let it be you, it always has to be the other way around." Dick felt on the verge of tears again.

"Do you ever get used to it? You've had so many people who were close to you die. In the JLA, there have been so many deaths, don't you ever get used to it?" Bruce leaned forward and put his hand on Dick's shoulder.

"Dick, you pray you never do."

The car hurtled along, whisking them back to Gotham City, where Dick, Robin, hoped that he could learn to grieve, and learn to live again. He wanted to feel all of Starfire's death, every inch of it. He promised himself then to not shy away from the feelings, not to disappear behind alter ego's or ignore the feelings by pummelling evil doers. He would honour her memory, and he would never, ever forget.

One tear fell then, swelling in his eye and then rolling softly down his cheek. Bruce squeezed Dick's shoulder and did his best to comfort the boy, but he was always bad at that sort of thing.

They both sat back in their seats and let the ride take them. Dick started to stare out the window, as he had been doing so often these past days. The sun was out, and he felt it's warmth on his face. There were birds flying through the air, sticking out black against the baby blue sky. There was only one thought going through his head on such a good day;

_Starfire would have liked a day like this._

Yes, Starfire would have, and he would remember that for the rest of his life. Every time he looked into a flawless blue sky, or an expansive ocean stretched before him, her face would be there looking back. So then, she wouldn't really be dead, would she? She would live in him, in his heart and his mind. Forever there, helping him through the hard times, helping him to deal with the hardest parts of his life. Always there, to guide him, and always there to receive his love, for he would never, ever stop loving her, not as long as he drew breath. It was then he realized that she wasn't dead, for it wasn't death if you refused it, only if you accepted it.

Starfire would live as long as he loved her.

And he always, always would.

**The End**


	11. Epilogue II

Epilogue II

"Hmmm, broken nose, fractured orbital bone of the left eye, a nice chunk of flesh taken out of his mid-section, and a severe stab wound to the right chest, through two ribs and a lung. The guys lucky to be alive, you sure your kid did this?"

"Yes, and he isn't 'my kid'."

Slade had asked for light, and plenty of it, so of course his room was dark. They say that in space, no one can hear you scream, what they don't tell you is that most of the time they really don't care, either. Sure the League had patched Slade right up, minus the anaesthetic, of course. As far as they were concerned whatever help they gave him was better than he deserved.

Presently, League members J'onn, resident organizer of the JLA (and, in a pinch, physician) Wally West AKA The Flash, and Batman stood over his battered, bruised and bandaged form.

"Well, he might as well be your kid, the way he acts."

"Flash, I don't refer to Bart as 'your kid', don't refer to Dick as mine."

"Hey now, Bart just got the call to join the Teen Titans, I'd be proud to call him my kid. He's already Kid Flash, after all." This elicited a small, choked laugh from Slade, who was conscious and listening to everything.

"Good...another head for the butchers block..." he croaked. The Flash raised a fist and started towards him but Batman caught him by the wrist.

"He won't ever get that chance, don't worry."

They continued to stare down at Robin's handiwork, and couldn't help but be impressed. Not at the damage the boy inflicted (though some would claim that that was certainly worthy of praise), but rather the restraint shown. In this condition, Slade would have been easy pickings for someone to just up and kill, and yet Robin had walked away. Even after all the crap Slade had put him through, he just hauled himself and his broken arm to the nearest hospital and never looked back.

"So what are we gonna do with the piece o'scum?" Wally pointed his thumb towards Slade. "I don't want him ever messing with the Titans again."

"Since when are you so passionate about what they do?" J'onn enquired.

"Well, we did fight along side them not too long ago. They're a good group of kids, they deserve better than what this putz gave them."

"So what are you going to do with me? Prison? Don't make me laugh..." Slade said, slurring some of the words and making little coughing noises the whole way through.

"Don't worry, I have a special place for you," Batman said through a grin he couldn't keep back. Slade's one good eye darted between the three people standing around him. Oh, how he wanted to leap off of the bed and beat them all to a bloody pulp, but the pain was simply too much (That little boy packed a punch, he'd have to remember that for next time), and they'd restrained his arms and legs. Cowards.

"Where you putting him? That new prison in the Antarctic? What do they call it, the Block?" Flash asked.

"The Slab. No, that's too good for him." Batman replied.

"I would like to point out, that at this point hell would be too good for him." J'onn quipped. Flash and Batman nodded in agreement, for of course J'onn was right. Hell _was _too good.

"Yes, well, there's a next best thing to hell, right here on earth." Batman replied. Flash looked confused, which could be understood.

"Where? Coast City?" Batman and J'onn wheeled round and stared down Flash, there was anger in their eyes.

"What? Too soon?"

There was silence for a moment, while Batman composed himself.

_Coast City...jerk..._

"No, actually I've got a place even better than that."

"Better than a nuclear wasteland...this should be good." J'onn said, still in quip mode, it would seem.

"So where then? The suspense is killing me."

"Arkham Asylum. I heard a few weeks ago that the Joker needs a new cellmate." Slade's eye widened and glistened in the low light of the room.

"The Joker? Nice!" The Flash said approvingly.

"What happened to his last cellmate?" J'onn asked.

"Insane, just like the last three before that. Seems Joker knows just what buttons to push." Batman walked to Slade's side and bent over, so their noses nearly touched. "You two should get along famously." Slade started to struggle against his restraints, shaking the bed violently.

"Let me go! I demand to be released immediately!"

"Tell it to the guy with green hair, dirtbag." Flash said, turning and walking out of the room.

"No! No, this is not fair!" Slade was yelling, with madness pervading over his voice. He thrashed against the restraints that held him.

"Why don't you think of what's fair the next time you aim a gun at a child. You deserve to die, consider yourself lucky, Slade." Batman growled, and swept out of the room, his cape trailing behind him. J'onn followed Batman out of the room without a word, quip mode was apparently over.

"No! Don't leave me here! Don't!" The door slowly slid closed leaving Slade in the pitch dark of the out of the way room in Justice League headquarters. They could hear his screams and pleads three floors up, and they continued for at least two hours. Everyone there knew who he was, though, everyone knew his crimes, and soon they all knew of his punishment. And though no one ever spoke of him, not in large groups or through gossip, anyway, they all thought the same thing.

Life, him living, his continued existence, it was _too damn good for him_.


End file.
